This poem is set in fall during October. The setting is very natural, containing a lot of natural scenery and giving a good sense of the outdoors and seasons. In the poem we read about an aging man. The season is fall because it correlates with were the man is in life. It shows that his life is coming to an end; he is closing in on death.
The imagery being shown is supposed to mirror the old man, it’s a mixture of reality and nature combining the two showing the parallels between humans and nature/seasons. Everything in the world eventually comes to an end.
The narrator plays with light and dark also giving a sense of life and death. In the line “Dawn comes later and later now” it’s saying that fall is turning to winter. Winter is representing the end of the old man’s time.
This poem is showing how quickly time goes by and how short life really is, we see this in the line "pale and odd, startled by time". In this line the old man is surprised; to him it feels like old age has just sprung on him it came so quickly, without notice.
The last sentence "And I, who only wished to keep looking out, must now keep looking in" I feel has to do with death. Sort of like being alive and part of the world he could do whatever, be wherever, see wherever, but with death comes confinement. He is no longer free, he is eternally stuck with no light or windows or nature. It is just his body lying still, an eternity slumbering, forever in the earth.
I absolutely agree with you with the imagery is captivating a real outdoor natural scene in the beginning. Interesting enough the use of imagery depicts life and the theme everything comes to an end is a bit overwhelming, mainly because i in-vision life, time, the end, death very often and have similar views in life. This is like the first time i can relate my deep thoughts with poetry. The line, “Dawn comes later and later now” is similar to the fish accepting its fate. In some ways i see a pattern that relates all the poem to each other some way or another. Good stuff Gehlhaus.
ReplyDeleteYes, this could be read as a metaphor for aging and approaching death, but could be read other ways, as well. Note that the speaker places the reader in a specific place--a kitchen table early in the morning, with a cup of coffee--while at the same time taking us on an imaginative journey... The poem may also have a Frostian edge, turning away from a world of fancy and imagination, to an inner darkness, of self-consciousness. He's looking "out" a window, btw, before daylight--so the interior light makes the window function as a kind of dark mirror--by looking out, he looks in--perfect image for a poem that is an ambiguous mixture of light, delicate, fanciful, and dark reflection...and the sense that interior and exterior worlds are intertwined, like the "twist / of wet leaves" that winter (personified) leads the yong animal away with--and hard to disentangle
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