"Sweating and panting in the stove-steam hot-stone
cedar-planking wooden bucket water-splashing
kerosene lantern-flicker wind-in-the-pines-out
sierra forest ridges night—"
Its centered on a father- Gary, a mother- Masa, and two children- Kai and Gen. Deeper into the poem its meaning is about a man discovering that his family, their bodies are one. He says- "Is this our body?". He makes this statement/question twice in the beginning of the poem and as it continues it transforms into the following lines- "this our body" & "this is our body". At the beginning the narrator is questioning it but as the poem grows he stops questioning it and he says it with meaning and power. It is no longer a question but a statement of truth.
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ReplyDeleteI had trouble while reading this poem, it contained so much imagery that I'll admit left me somewhat uncomfortable, (I blame how we're raised with such puritanical viewpoints regarding the body in this country) I had to put those aside to see the beautiful statement of this poem which I feel you did a very good job of summing up the salient point.
ReplyDeleteCheck the study sheets on this one. The body is not just the human body--the first image you quote is a good eg. of Snyder's technigue, and world view--as a Buddhist, the interconnectedness of all life forms is key; his poems collapse distances--near and far, but also human and other. In this poem, the imagery begins with the human body, but finds ways through it--details of it, the imagery--to the universal...
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