Taking control Aug. 2, 2012
The poem she posted today echoes in tone if not in content that of her quicksand poem.
While as short at the previous poem, this poem about
compassion is much more structured, using parallel phrasing to give it power
and impact.
Yet despite its brevity, it is incredibly complex, and creates
a number of possible alternative interpretations, depending partly on for whom
the poem is written.
My ego (my narcissistic self as she referred to me in an
earlier poem) would like to think the poem is directed at me, and so like the poem
about quicksand, offers a certain measure of condolence or compassion for a
clearly defeated man.
But the poem may well also be directed at herself, about the
idea of compassion or perhaps pain.
While the overtly it claims to be about compassion, in fact,
the poem goes beyond both pain and compassion and may well allude of a
philosophy of survival.
As with the quick sand poem, this poem seems to be offering
advice, although less fatalistic.
The most important word in this poem is “it” that leads each
stanza, brilliantly used to allow the poem to play off many possible meanings, a
symbolic reference to any human condition. The poem is about control, about
being able to stop something when you to it, or find a way to ease or reduce its
impact, or perhaps go with the flow of it etc.
But more than just a negative, it is proposing a way of
life, of having control over your own destiny. You can stop something, or you
can take it in Zen-like to embrace it, or you can go with the flow rather than
resisting it. You also have power to use it, control it, make it do what you
need or want it to do.
The last lines of the poem add yet another level of complexity
in a sense of noble defiance in that she is doing what she is doing against the
advice of those around her and it taken as directed at me, she appears to be
offering -- if not forgiveness which she
said was impossible – but perhaps absolution, less that I should accept sinking
as my fate, but instead offering hope of redemption, a strategy for survival.
In this poem, she demonstrates a sense of compassion as if she understands just
how powerless I’ve become, compassion she offers despite some around her who
are opposed to it.
The poem is the antithesis of her poems of rage, showing a
deeper and kinder side of her in her ability to rise above her own fear and
rage to offer condolence, if not to me then – if the poem is basically talking
to herself – then to show compassion to some wounded part of herself.
If the poem is directed to me, it is offering an alternative
to forgiveness. It is directed at herself, then she is asking one part of
herself to show compassion to another part of herself, giving herself a roadmap
on out to survive, stopping what she wants stopped, easing the severity,
flowing with the tide rather than against it, or most importantly, taking
control of it (fear or pain or whatever) to make it do for her what she wants
and needs.
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