Question:
Plz plz help analyze this poem?
Lying apart now,each in a separate bed,
He with a book, keeping the light on late,
She like a girl dreaming of childhood,
All men elsewhwhere-it is as if they wait
Some new event: the book he holds unread.
Her eyes fixed on the shadows over head
Tossed up floatsam from a former passion
How cool they lie .They hardly ever touch,
Or if they do it is like a confession
Of having too much feeling -or too much
Chastity faces them, a destination
For which their whole lives were a preparation.
Strangely apart and strangely together,
Silence between them like a thread to hold
And not wind in. And time itself's a feather
Touching them gently. Do they know the're old.
These two who are my father and my mother
Whose fire, from which i came, has grown cold?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
I don't think you really want us to analyze your poem. What I think you want is somebody to understand the fear you have of marrying and winding up being in a marital relationship as an older person similar to your perceptions of your parents' relationship at this time. And more. Read on.
I do not know what prompted the visuals you presented -- whether you walked in on them before they turned the lights out in their bedroom or whether you just imagine this because of what you perceive in their day to day relationship, but it strikes me as slightly troublesome that you seem preoccupied with this subject matter. To me it seems this is more about you and your struggle to grasp the truth of human relationships as they evolve and what this is going to mean for you as you go through life. The parental vision you paint is just the vehicle for you to work through this more personal struggle within you...the thing we all struggle with...how things change as we age.
In the poem, you seem to have opposing perceptions of their sexual communication. On the one hand they lie cool and hardly touch. On the other, they have too much feeling, and then again, too much chastity faces them. I'm just kind of wondering if your relative youth makes it hard for you to understand that ALL of those perceptions could be true in a relationship and not necessarily mean the relationship is bad, or cold, or sexually done or something you are doomed to. What you read in your vision may not be at all the answer of where they are at, hence, no more a true picture for where you, at that stage and age, may find yourself.
Most importantly, there seems to be a sadness within you to think that the fire from which you came may have gone cold. It is almost as if you feel less validated because your parents have aged and evolved into this vision you have perceived/created. That you somehow feel less in some way having had these thoughts about them.
So...while I haven't analyzed the actual poem, I have taken a shot at what came through more clearly to me...the actual feelings that drove the poem to be written, the underlying fears and assumptions about relationships and growing old. sort of, "is that all there is?" realization, without really appreciating that what you see is not always what you get, what you read is not always true, and so forth.
But I very much appreciate the deep thought, the turmoil of this for you, the honesty to admit what you saw (however true or not it is, it is true for you) and so forth.
I hope this is helpful. Don't despair. But definitely keep expressing yourself. I see the potential for moments of brilliance, if not in your poetic expression, most assuredly in your personal insights about the pain and disappointment of growing old. To get out of that depressing little subject, maybe your next shot should be a poem about the rewards of growing old together. Can you imagine that? Can you look at your parents and build a whole new poem about that?