Post by lildawnrae on Jan 9, 2019 12:51:06 GMT -5
As several perceptive writers have said, this is a complicated poem. Although it's written in couplets, I found other couplets that seemed to demand attention. If a couplet 's second line is indented, the following couplet begins with an indented line. If it ends with a non-indented line, the next couplet will begin in the same way. For me, the unit of the given couplets pushes against the unity of each last line and first line combination. It makes me a little dizzy.
The possum is so real and physical in this poem of philosophy. And yes, she is also a metaphor. Don't we all notice there is another pair of eyes above our shoulder? It's "sweet" to think of our children and grandchildren riding piggy back on us, but hey, they are "eyes above our shoulders", and they don't always like what they see. It's sweet and also scary.
The two adult figures are interesting. Mother, responding to the 9-11 attacks, says "we cannot/ continue to live in a world where we// have so much/ and other people have so little." "He" a man who "moves among the powerful," says mother is wrong. Yet mother's phrase, a bit of a commonplace today, not a vivid or striking image, almost cliché, is the place to which the speaker returns. Perhaps this poem in a demonstration of the complicated cruelties of the world and the truth of a simple affirmation in the context of all that cruelty in a world where "the weaker ones fall/ by the wayside…" "we cannot/ continue to live in a world where we// have so much/ and other people have so little."
The possum is so real and physical in this poem of philosophy. And yes, she is also a metaphor. Don't we all notice there is another pair of eyes above our shoulder? It's "sweet" to think of our children and grandchildren riding piggy back on us, but hey, they are "eyes above our shoulders", and they don't always like what they see. It's sweet and also scary.
The two adult figures are interesting. Mother, responding to the 9-11 attacks, says "we cannot/ continue to live in a world where we// have so much/ and other people have so little." "He" a man who "moves among the powerful," says mother is wrong. Yet mother's phrase, a bit of a commonplace today, not a vivid or striking image, almost cliché, is the place to which the speaker returns. Perhaps this poem in a demonstration of the complicated cruelties of the world and the truth of a simple affirmation in the context of all that cruelty in a world where "the weaker ones fall/ by the wayside…" "we cannot/ continue to live in a world where we// have so much/ and other people have so little."
