(This is the first draft of my attempt to analyze this poem)
Her most recently posted poem was put up late last night –
at night being the usual time for such postings, and generally on a Sunday or
Monday.
It comes after I spent most of my night listening to all of
her music on line, knowing she would likely see the number of hits increasing,
suspecting, but not knowing for sure it is me.
Taking a step back from the personal and not trying to
assume to whom the poem is written, I need to look at what the poem actually
says before imposing an interpretation.
The poem is set a night, and the night air comes through her
mind though through “childhood senses” the way she remembers it from when she
was a kid, quiet, peaceful, suggesting nothing confrontational, like a peripheral
vision.
This comes at a time when her future is uncertain, “unclear,”
lost in a soft huge, a gray mist, yet nothing threatening at the moment, calm,
even soothing because it is empty of far or apprehension over what might come
next. It also sooths the past that she says is too full. She repeats “of my
past and my past and my past” to emphasis its troubles in her current life and
how it usually haunts her.
The next statement is a curious one, directed at someone,
perhaps herself, saying “You didn’t think I’d be here.”
This suggests that someone thought she might not survive, or
that she didn’t expect to be where she ended up.
Then still possibly talking to herself, she asked, “Did we
think at all when we began?”
This may hint at how she got caught up in the life she has
led, and sometimes, she closed her eyes and tries wrap herself around the smell
(of the sea breeze), wishing she wouldn’t think about the beginning why, because
those things flow through and out of her mind, carried away on the night breeze
that came again tonight – and went.
This also may be interpreted in connection with her desire
to see her lover again, and when she does, it helps her, but it doesn’t last,
because he comes (both in the sense of arrival and possibly as in sex) then
leaves again, back to his real life without her.
Her work is so cryptic, there might be other meanings I can’t
think of.
If she is speaking to someone other than herself, then it
may have an entirely different meaning.
The line about him not thinking she’d be there strongly
supports the idea of a relationship – and the continued theme of her other recent
poems.
Perhaps she really is in love, but a sticky situation. She
has spoken of this before, about not knowing how to get around the situation,
and if talking to him about it, acknowledges that they didn’t think their
affair would end up as it has.
There is a change from “I” to “We,” giving credence to the affair
interpretation.
Then, she shuts her eyes, and wraps herself around the
smell.
What smell?
The night air? Perhaps the musk of his love making.
She’s made reference in other poems to his smell, his body
wrapped around hers.
But if this is what she means, there is a sense of sadness
at it not lasting, his coming, his leaving, leaving her alone.
Whatever it is, it is a situation she doesn’t want to think
about, and apparently feels that it’s beyond her to do anything about it anyway.
There is resignation in the poem – if not the persistent pain
and rage she sometimes expressed in other poems.
If anything, she has adopted a much softer tone.
Again, it is unclear just to whom she is directing this and
other poems,
Perhaps the night breeze moving through her childhood senses
means love, but it would also mean the aspirations she had – all those
attempted careers, including her music, which she put such stock into as a
young girl.
The breeze comes in quietly from one side as she ponders and
has doubts about the future.
Again, we have the direct statement about someone (she or
he) not thinking she would be there – perhaps back to square one, the idea that
she might have to start over with someone else or some new situation.
My feeling is that there are multiple meanings because the
situation she’s stuck in, or surviving is too complicated for one simple thought.
Most likely, she’s looking back at the whole mess,
commenting on how neither of them thought things would end this way when they
started, and then forces herself not to think about it, the night breeze
carrying out of her mind all those things that depress her.
This is far less judgmental than some of her angrier poems.
She does not imply guilt. But she sees failures and seems to have a lot of
baggage on her shoulders.
The poem may well have been inspired by a recent trip home
that stirred up a lot of childhood memories, and a childhood perception she
once had. So, the poem then may be looking at her life now from the perspective
of her childhood, her long lost innocence, and pondering how she got to where
she got, and stirring up doubts about the future.
But in the night breeze, she seems relieved of those burdens
at least for that moment, the wind comes, the wind goes, taking all of concerns
with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment