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I'll tell you how the sun rose, -- a ribbon at a time.

— Emily Dickinson

Gold ribbon curls upward from a spool on a small blue hill beneath a pale sky.
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Our reading

An editorial interpretation.

The speaker describes sunrise as a slow unspooling, with the light arriving one ribbon at a time rather than all at once. It's a gentle metaphor that turns dawn into something being unwound and handed over piece by piece.

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