I think I looked up what the title meant first before reading the information about the poem and the poet. Usually, the lens I look through in analyzing poems is New Criticism: close reading, focus on how technique informs the context without looking at the author or the background.
But no, not this poem. I recommend after reading the "About This Poem" at the end of the poem. I believe sincerity is a crux for this poem. If you don't believe the perspective of the speaker or come to this poem with cynicism, then you'll miss out on the insight this poem brings. Why? This is Max Ritvo's last poems and I'm going to assume he knew that this would be one of his last poems. It kind of reminds me of John Donne's "Holy Sonnets".
The first two lines, "Today I woke up in my body / and wasn't that body anymore" encapsulates wasting away. The mind is still present, synapses still firing, but the current wasted body isn't his body anymore. This is explained in the later lines of, "My body's work to break the world / into bricks and sticks / has turned inward." The body is something going against itself.
But before the reveal of the body working against itself, there's the simile of the speaker's dog where the body is "most part obedient, /warming to me / when I slip it a goldfish or toast." Such little things to consume for it to feel normal. Then the image turns loose with, "but it sheds" and I think of all the dog hair laying around. The image of the body not being stable and only can do simple things, "Can't get past a simple sit, / stay, turn over, House-trained, but not entirely."
This doesn't mean it's time to say goodbye.I've realized the estrangementis temporary, and for my own good:
Sincere insight. There's something Zen about these lines. When does someone say goodbye when they are wasting away? Is there a good time? Probably not. Estrangement from knowing the body and the moment is probably the only peace someone dying knows. I wonder how these words affected Max Ritvo when he reread them.
I also wonder the same thing about the last three lines of the poem.
As all the doors in the worldgrow heavya big white bed is being put up in my heart.
Note how the doors don't close, but just weigh more when the speaker wastes away. To know what doors weigh more versus the metaphor of a big white bed being propped up in his heart, does comfort come into play here in the end? Is it cause or effect like the weight of the door is leading to this big white bed or happening because it has to.
Comments
Post a Comment