Okay, I’m editing this entry to add a couple of comments I didn’t have time for this morning. I have no idea what the answer is to the question asked in the title of this poem. The only thing I came up with was that it didn’t rhyme which is what some people think makes something a poem. Other people are responding with their own thoughts but I must confess that I feel better knowing I’m not the only one a wee bit perplexed by it.
NOTICE WHAT THIS POEM IS NOT DOING
The light along the hills in the morning
comes down slowly, naming the trees
white, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate.
Notice what this poem is not doing.
A house, a house, a barn, the old
quarry, where the river shrugs–
how much of this place is yours?
Notice what this poem is not doing.
Every person gone has taken a stone
to hold, and catch the sun. The carving
says, “Not here, but called away.”
Notice what this poem is not doing.
The sun, the earth, the sky, all wait.
The crowns and redbirds talk. The light
along the hills has come, has found you.
Notice what this poem has not done.
— William Stafford
Confession
OK, I just feel stupid. I don’t really get this poem. Is it simply a paean to the power of nature, or is there something I’m missing entirely. Help!
Blushing,
Laura
Re: Confession
Laura,
I posted this one because I was fascinated with the idea BUT you are not alone. I don’t get it either. The only thing I came up with was that it wasn’t in rhyme and I don’t think it is in any particular structure.
Where’s Kelly? I bet she knows.
OK, my husband and I are lost too. It has no characters, no story, no rhyming…..
But it doesn’t look like a trick with no e’s or y’s.
I’m curious. What has this poem not done specifically?
I don’t know either, Diane. I cut and pasted it exactly as I found it, though I think that Phoebe’s comment might make some sense.
What a provocative poem! I love it. I’m not sure I get it either, but it sure seems like it’s talking about not owning nature, not naming it. The cemetary in the 3rd stanza suggests we are just stones for the light to catch, we are named by the light and not the other way around. There is no conflict anywhere in the poem, unless you insist on owning and naming.
Okay, poetry is NOT my thing… but here’s what I kinda thought:
There are a number of different things that the poem “has not done.” It has not rhymed, it has not followed a standard structure (that I noticed), etc. But it’s not telling you what ONE thing it means.
Just like a lot of good poetry (or painting or sculpture or whatever art) doesn’t give you one way to look at things.
So maybe what the poem has not done is given you “the answer”, the one way to think.
But if I’m at all right, then you can all disagree with me. 😉 There’s a certain beauty in that.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who just didn’t get it. 🙂
what this poem is not doing
I think what it’s not doing.. is hmm it doesn’t utilize any human sounds or voices, just personifying nature. In the last stanza, everything is waiting, and the “light has found you” is describing people who are about to pass away. This poem is missing the human touch
I think that the poet was writing for a woman, who may well have been the subject of many other poems, perhaps to the estent of getting tired of it – notice what this poem hasn’t done? It hasn’t declared any love for “her”, but it’s clearly an homage to the lover of the poet, without actually mentioning her. That’s what I noticed that the poem hadn’t done, but then that’s just my two pence.