(Gallagher reads this poem in a Youtube video to the right)
1 That linkage of warnings sent a tremor through June
as if to prepare October in the hardest apples.
One week in late July we held hands
through the bars of his hospital bed. Our sleep
5 made a canopy over us and it seemed I heard
its durable roaring in the companion sleep
of what must have been our Bedouin god, and now
when the poppy lets go I know it is to lay bare
his thickly seeded black coach
10 at the pinnacle of dying.
My shaggy ponies heard the shallow snapping of silk
but grazed on down the hillside, their prayer flags
tearing at the void-what we
stared into, its cool flux
15 of blue and white. How just shaking at flies
they sprinkled the air with the soft unconscious praise
of bells braided into their manes. My life
simplified to "for him" and his thinned like an injection
wearing off so the real gave way to
20 the more-than-real, each moment's carmine
abundance, furl of reddest petals
lifted from the stalk and no hint of the black
hussar's hat at the center. By then his breathing stopped
so gradually I had to brush lips to know
25 an ending. Tasting then that plush of scarlet
which is the last of warmth, kissless kiss
he would have given. Mine to extend a lover's right past its radius,
to give and also most needfully, my gallant hussar,
29 to bend and take.
its durable roaring in the companion sleep
of what must have been our Bedouin god, and now
when the poppy lets go I know it is to lay bare
his thickly seeded black coach
10 at the pinnacle of dying.
My shaggy ponies heard the shallow snapping of silk
but grazed on down the hillside, their prayer flags
tearing at the void-what we
stared into, its cool flux
15 of blue and white. How just shaking at flies
they sprinkled the air with the soft unconscious praise
of bells braided into their manes. My life
simplified to "for him" and his thinned like an injection
wearing off so the real gave way to
20 the more-than-real, each moment's carmine
abundance, furl of reddest petals
lifted from the stalk and no hint of the black
hussar's hat at the center. By then his breathing stopped
so gradually I had to brush lips to know
25 an ending. Tasting then that plush of scarlet
which is the last of warmth, kissless kiss
he would have given. Mine to extend a lover's right past its radius,
to give and also most needfully, my gallant hussar,
29 to bend and take.
Even though this poem was written about 6 years after Raymond Carver’s death, it still conveys a deep sorrow and pain as if it was written the day after he died. Personally, I understood the poem much more after I listened to Gallagher read it aloud. The change in her voice when she read “for him” (18) and “kissless kiss” (26) really captures the tone well. Also, the symbol of the red poppy for death and grief was described in ways that tied in the whole idea of life versus death.
Some additional information:
Gallagher refers to “a Bedouin god” (7), and a Bedouin is a nomadic Arab of the desert. According to a Bedouin legend, God had created the horse using the South wind and made it the creature who could fly without wings. This could definitely tie into the hillside scene with the ponies. Then at the end of the poem, she refers to her lover as her "gallant hussar" (28). A hussar is often a soldier, sometimes a horse-rider. So if she sees him as a rider and the horse can fly without wings, then perhaps this her way of accepting he is moving on to a better place.
Literary Devices –
Allusion: a reference to a person, place, thing, or another work
- In lines 7 and 28, Gallagher alludes to the Bedouin legend and horses (described above).
Symbol: an object that stands for something beyond itself
- Here, the red poppy represents death, and the ways in which it is described can be thought of as a comparison as well to the concept of life versus death. The “scarlet” (25) lips that she kisses to realize that he has passed.
Alliteration: repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words
- Gallagher emphasizes the “kissless kiss” (26) because it is the final sign that he is gone.
After reading the poem the first time through, I was a bit confused as to the meaning of the poem. However after listening to it, I understood the narrator's devastating loss for her partner, giving her last "kissless kiss" (line 26). As to the meaning of the second stanza, I understood it as the horses looking into the sky, "the void" (line 13) with "its cool flux of blue and white" (lines 14-15). The horses, or human kind in general, contemplates the mysterious life after death. In the last line of the stanza, the narrator is saying that with death comes something good, possibly by accident or in an unexpected way.
ReplyDeleteI don't really understand why/how she chose it, but I think the setting of the hillside with the ponies with the bells in their manes, and the prayer flags flapping in the wind is a perfect place for the mind to lie when addressing this situation. It sets a tone of deep sorrow and melancholy that was expressed in a more objective/factual/plot-focused way in the first stanza. It's almost as if she described her state of mind with this place--very interesting and something I do not remember ever coming across.
ReplyDeleteBy "companion sleep" (6), I wonder if the speaker is referring to the eternal sleep that poppies often symbolize. If so, this is clever, for she is striking us with vivid images of eternal sleep before more explicitly exhibits what will soon occur.
Though the poppy is often a symbol of eternal sleep and thus death, I think that in this context, it also seems to represent life by being the red blood of life: "that plush of scarlet / which is the last of warmth" (26-27). Here the speakers' last bit of life is represented as red --> the red of life --> poppies.
So since the poppies represent life and death, 'red poppy' in this poem could possibly represent the connection and closeness of life and death.
Another interesting aspect of this poem is how the speaker focuses on the moments before her lover's death. I have not seen this in a poem before. So in a way, she is focusing on his life and not his death. The entire poem occurs during the last moments before he passes, showing how painful yet how precious these many seconds were.
My favorite part of the poem was: "[her] life / simplified to "for him" (17-18). When I first started reading it I thought, "Oh another poem grieving a lost lover." But this excerpt shows how strongly and purely she loved him and also almost gives her the right to writing this poem.