07-24-2016, 02:33 AM
I'm moving the discussion of this poem over from "Poems you Love" so that people can have a conversation if they want without enveloping that thread.
A Moment
Across the highway a heron stands
in the flooded field. It stands
as if lost in thought, on one leg, careless,
as if the field belongs to herons.
The air is clear and quiet.
Snow melts on this second fair day.
Mother and daughter,
we sit in the parking lot
with doughnut and coffee.
We are silent.
For a moment the wall between us
opens to the universe;
then closes.
And you go on saying
you do not want to repeat my life.
~ Ruth Stone
Achebe wrote: I like Ruth Stone, but this one somehow irritates me. I want to say to her 'no one cares a duck about your inability to connect with your presumably teenaged little shit of a kid, you spoilt first world freerider on cheap Chinese labour that made the ducking plastic spoon you're eating your donut with.'
Next wrote: And yet, there they are... Personally, I'd like the poem to end on "We are silent". That would make it a much better poem for me.
But then, I don't have teenage daughter.
I obviously had a different opinion of the poem, otherwise I wouldn't have liked it . On some level, though, you have to concede that the poem is successful because it has provoked a response. She's left the drama wide open for interpretation, so no one can get upset when people project their own storyline into the mix. But, she does set the scene well enough for us to do that.
Ending it on 'We are Silent' would completely neuter the poem. What would be left? A heron. Doughnuts. Nothing I would remember.
As Next said, I think that this one will probably resonate most with those who have a daughter or have ever been one. I saw in this a young-adult/teenage daughter telling the mom that she wants to go one direction with her life and the mom wants her to go another. No matter how quality the mom, on some level this has to sting to be told (or have it implied) that your life isn't good enough to repeat. Even though 'good enough' has nothing to do with the wants and needs of the next generation.
But, when it comes to the quality of the poem, my interpretation is neither here nor there.
A Moment
Across the highway a heron stands
in the flooded field. It stands
as if lost in thought, on one leg, careless,
as if the field belongs to herons.
The air is clear and quiet.
Snow melts on this second fair day.
Mother and daughter,
we sit in the parking lot
with doughnut and coffee.
We are silent.
For a moment the wall between us
opens to the universe;
then closes.
And you go on saying
you do not want to repeat my life.
~ Ruth Stone
Achebe wrote: I like Ruth Stone, but this one somehow irritates me. I want to say to her 'no one cares a duck about your inability to connect with your presumably teenaged little shit of a kid, you spoilt first world freerider on cheap Chinese labour that made the ducking plastic spoon you're eating your donut with.'
Next wrote: And yet, there they are... Personally, I'd like the poem to end on "We are silent". That would make it a much better poem for me.
But then, I don't have teenage daughter.
I obviously had a different opinion of the poem, otherwise I wouldn't have liked it
. On some level, though, you have to concede that the poem is successful because it has provoked a response. She's left the drama wide open for interpretation, so no one can get upset when people project their own storyline into the mix. But, she does set the scene well enough for us to do that. Ending it on 'We are Silent' would completely neuter the poem. What would be left? A heron. Doughnuts. Nothing I would remember.
As Next said, I think that this one will probably resonate most with those who have a daughter or have ever been one. I saw in this a young-adult/teenage daughter telling the mom that she wants to go one direction with her life and the mom wants her to go another. No matter how quality the mom, on some level this has to sting to be told (or have it implied) that your life isn't good enough to repeat. Even though 'good enough' has nothing to do with the wants and needs of the next generation.
But, when it comes to the quality of the poem, my interpretation is neither here nor there.