Heaven Is What I Cannot Reach!

Heaven Is What I Cannot Reach!
by Emily Dickinson

Heaven is what I cannot reach!
The apple on the tree,
Provided it do hopeless hang,
That "heaven" is, to me.

The color on the cruising cloud,
The interdicted ground
Behind the hill, the house behind, --
There Paradise is found!

Found at http://www.poetry.org/dickenson.htm

A thing to notice in this poem is Dickinson’s use of punctuation, which is a characteristic in many of her pieces. The exclamation at the beginning gave me a sense of enthusiasm right at the start of the piece; a feeling of desperation and exasperation due to the fact that she can not reach the Heaven of which she speaks. The second choice of punctuation that is worth noting is her use of quotations over “heaven”. Earlier in the stanza she had Heaven capitalized. I honestly do not know how to interpret this; she could perhaps be using the word heaven in a mocking fashion, but I doubt this. By having heaven in quotations, the word stands out, so it must be significant. Perhaps she is saying heaven in quotes because there is a double meaning she was trying to get across. Any ideas?? Dickinson’s use of slashes, which is common in her poetry, creates the effect of a pause, and allows the last line to be separated from the rest of the poem. Dickinson uses two forms of punctuation to bring out the last line of the poem: the preceding slash, and the exclamation mark at the end.