Tonight at Fu-chou, this moon she watches
Alone in our room. And my little, far-off
Children, too young to understand what keeps me
Away, or even remember Chang’an. By now,

Her hair will be mist-scented, her jade-white
Arms chilled in its clear light. When
Will it find us together again, drapes drawn
Open, light traced where it dries our tears?

After doing a little research online, I was able to gather a little information about the life of Tu Fu which helped me understand some of the places he was referencing in this poem.  Chang’an, for example, is the town where Tu Fu grew up and lived.  Knowing this information was of some help, but I had to read deeper into it.

In my mind, I picture a sad woman staring at the moon from the window of her house.  She is waiting for her husband to come back, probably from work, something that her children are “too young to understnad what keeps [him] away,” but no matter how hard she stares at the moon (her hair will be “mist-scented,” her arms “jade-white”), she knows that he will not return soon.  She wonders when they might actually be together and not separated.

As soon as I was finished reading this poem, I thought of a song from the Disney movie “Fidel” called “Somewhere Out There.”  Both Fivel and the woman in this poem are staring at the moon and waiting to be reunited with the person that they love!!

Somewhere out there, beneath the pale moon light
Someone’s thinking of me and loving me tonight
Somewhere out there, someone’s saying a prayer
That we’ll find one another in that big somewhere out there.

(Bridge)
And even though I know how very far part we are
If helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star
And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we’re sleeping underneath the same big sky.

(Chorus)
Somewhere out there, if love can see us though
Then we’ll be together
Somewhere out there, out where dreams come true.

I love that song!!!

Nor was I chilled to death
By the wind’s white shudders, thanks
To the veils of his patient breath
And the mist of sweat from his flanks.

It seemed that all night through,
Within my hand no rein
And nothing in my view
But the pillar of his mane,

I rode with magic ease
At a quick, unstumbling trot
Through shattering vacancies
On into what was not,

Till the weave of the storm grew thin,
With a threading of cedar-smoke,
And the ice-blind pane of an inn
Shimmered, and I awoke.

How shall I now get back
To the inn-yard where he stands,
Burdened with every lack,
And waken the stable-hands

To give him, before I think
That there was no horse at all,
Some hay, some water to drink,
A blanket and a stall?

“The Ride” – Richard Wilbur

http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/audio/wilbur/the_ride.mp3

At the above website, Wilbur says that he wrote this poem because it reminded him of a common dream, or one that everybody has had before.  After reading this poem, I feel that he was able to accomplish this.  While I have never had this exact dream, who hasn’t woken from a dream and felt like it really happened?  In fact, this dream felt so real to Wilbur that when he awoke, he wanted to return to the inn’s stable where the horse was standing so that he might offer the horse comfort.  Because the horse offered Wilbur comfort (“and so I had no fear” and “Nor was I chilled to death… thanks to the veils of his patient breath and the mist of sweat from his flanks.”) when he was scared and confused, the poet wants to make sure that the horse is given that same luxury.

They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence.
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself, it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.

According to Shakespeare, the people who have the ability to hurt others (though it is not said how-physically, financially, emotionally, etc…) and choose not to are those who “rightly do inherit heaven’s graces.”  Although this is awesome for those people, it seems at first that Shakespeare holds them in a less than positive light based on the way he describes them in the previous lines as “are themselves as stone; / unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow.”  This is definitely not the description I would use to praise somebody, especially somebody who is going to “inherit heaven’s graces.”  Shakespeare also says that they are the only people who are in control of their faces becuase they do not put on masks when they lie. 

Shakespeare later says that although the flower is sweet to others, it does not smell sweet to itself becuase the flower is accustomed to smelling this sweet scent, or performing kindness in this case.  A flower that suddenly suffers from a base infection where they engage in hurtful deeds is a lot worse than weeds.  What Shakespeare said in those previous lines really reminds me of Harry Potter.  Harry has the potential to be like Voldemort and do bad deeds, but he chooses not to and remains a pure lily.  Voldemort, on the other hand, is like one of those festering lilies because he does evil to all the muggleborns!!

I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets.
I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road
At night I turn back the clocks;
I open the family album and look at myself as a boy.

What good does it do? The hours have done their job.
I say my own name. I say goodbye.
The words follow each other downwind.
I love my wife but send her away.

My parents rise out of their thrones
into the milky rooms of clouds. How can I sing?
Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same.
I empty myself of my life and my life remains.

-Mark Strand

When I first read this poem, I felt very sad as it made me realize how little control I have over the world.  No matter what I may try to do with my life, time steadily and constantly marches on.  With or without me, time always passes.  Although I am like the narrator who tries to relive memories and “turn back the clock” by looking through old photo albums, I cannot truly return to days that have passed.  I may live in these memories, but the time has passed and there is nothing that I can do to make my home in this memory. Over time, these memories begin to fade, and eventually I will forget the names of others, even those that I hold nearest to me.  There is nothing I can do to combat this, and the only thing I can do is move on with my life that remains. Because of this, I believe that Mark Strand is telling the reader that we cannot live in the past because there is no real way to turn back the clocks.

What confuses me in this poem is how in the second stanza Strand says that “The hours have done their job,” but in the third stanza he says that “I change and I am the same.”  Strand saying that “the hours have done their job” seems to me like he is realizing that he has gotten older and is no longer the same boy that he looked at in the photo albums previously mentioned in the first stanza.  The phrase “I change and I am the same” seems to contradict this, however, because it is impossible to be both unchanged and changed.  From the day we are born, our bodies change and develop; each day our minds transform themselves when we think a new thought or gather new knowledge.

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;–then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

I particularly enjoyed this poem because it provides Keat’s thoughts about death and dying young (“before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain.”)  When Keats started the poem by talking about how he will never be able to tell the world everything he can (and vice-versa), I thought that he was going to say how his greatest fear was that he would never be remembered.  He would not have “high-piled books, in charactery, hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain;” or a record of his innermost thoughts and feelings.  Later in the poem, however, he says “that I shall never look upon thee more, never have relish in the faery power of unreflecting love;” Keats really means that being without his loved ones would be the greatest pain felt from dying.  The thought of being without a loved one seems as if it would be unbearable to Keats until we read the final lines: “Then on the shore of the wide world I stand alone, and think till love and fame to nothingness do sink.”  I feel that Keats is saying that gainig fame or love really doesn’t matter because eventually everybody dies, and you cannot control death.

First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.

And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.

Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like a swimmer’s dividing water,
and slip inside.

You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.

The complexity of women’s undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything -
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.

What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.

So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset

and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that reason is a plank,
that life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.

This poem is an extended metaphor for reading an Emily Dickinson poem, not merely taking off her clothes as the title suggests.  In the first stanza, Collins talks about lifting off Dickinson’s “tippet made of tulle,” which to me represents turning past the cover of her book.  A tippet is a scarf that covers the neck, chest, and shoulders the way a book cover protects the pages of a book.  Her “bonnet, the bow undone with a light forward pull” baffles me somewhat.  I suppose it could represent the title page, but you don’t lightly pull a title page forward to turn it.  I think it might represent a type of ribbon bookmark that is included in the book because the strings of a bonnet bow hang down like a bookmark.  Also, the strings of a bonnet hold a bonnet in place much like a bookmark holds your spot in a book.

The third stanza represents the actual page of poetry.  The “long white dress” is a page in a novel, “mother-of-pearl buttons” are the words on the page.  The buttons are “tiny and numerous” because Dickinson was rather verbose.  It “takes forever before my hands can part the fabric, like a swimmer’s dividing water, and slip inside”  because Collins has to absorb the words’ meanings before he can probe deeper into the meaning of the poem.

The fourth stanza of the poem is a bit puzzling for me.  I’m not quite sure what Collins means to say.  Is the “upstairs bedroom” supposed to represent Emily Dickinson’s mind?  I don’t think so, but I’m not quite sure what it could mean.  I’m also a little bit puzzled as to why she is looking out a window to see an orchard.  I think this may be an allusion to one of her poems, but as I’m not a Dickinson expert, I could be totally wrong here.  If it’s not an allusion to one of her poems, oes the orchard represent Paradise/Eden, or does it represent something else?

In the next stanza, the “women’s undergarments” represent Dickinson’s thoughts.  The complexity is not to be waved off because, unlike the men of Dickinson’s time, Collins takes the time to ruminate and explore the deeper meanings of Dickinson’s thoughts.  Collins does not just assume that Dickinson wrote a poem simply for the sake of writing a poem, and by “proceeding through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,” Collins reveals the “iceberg of her nakedness,” or the true meaning of her poem.

In the next two stanzas, I believe that Collins is alluding to various examples of Dickinson’s life and poetry.  I know that Dickinson used a lot of “sudden dashes” in her poems, and based on the reappearance of the orchard, I would assume that she had written some sort of poem dealing with an orchard.  Also, Dickinson was from Amherst, MA, which explains the reference in the seventh stanza.  Furthermore, in a Dickinson poem entitled “Dying,” she starts the poem with the line “I heard a fly buzz when I died,” which I believe Collins references with the line, “a fly buzzing in a windowpane.”  This leads me to believe that this stanza is directly related to Dickinson’s death.

The final stanza is saturated with allusions to Dickinson’s poetry.  The line “hope has feathers” comes from the title of her work “Hope Is The Thing With Feathers;” the line “reason is a plank” is similar to a line in “280″ which says “-a plank in reason;” the line “that life is a loaded gun/ that looks right at you with a yellow eye” is featured almost verbatim in her poem “My life had Stood- a Loaded Gun-.”

So what does it all mean?  I think that those poem is Collins describing the very deep and personal connection he feels whenever he reads Dickinson.  It is almost as if he is truly “undressing” her and seeing her very thoughts and feelings, things that he feels only he is privy to.

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind –

-Emily Dickinson, “1129″

Emily Dickinson is stating that the truth is great and powerful, but actually telling the truth can only beneficial to us if it is skewed to present only certain facts as the truth is often the cause of discord.  We tend to overlook the negative aspects of the truth to highlight the positives.  If a friend asks you if she looks
fat/ugly/deformed, you usually don’t respond with “Oh God, don’t go out in public;” you generally respond with a more positive comment that removes attention from whatever she’s talking about.