This essay provides an explication of Emily Dickinson's poem "A bird came down the walk." Known for her unique perspective, concerned as much with contradictions as with grand conclusions, Dickinson found much of her inspiration in her quiet New England life. One of her more famous nature poems, "A bird came down the walk" describes a speaker encountering a simple bird. However, Dickinson uses careful and unusual language to extrapolate from the encounter to explore the larger relationship between humanity and nature, finding a contradiction between the wildness of the natural world and the meaning we often try to find in it.