Elizabeth Bishop - The End Of March
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For John Malcolm Brinnin and Bill Read: Duxbury
It was cold and windy, scarcely the day
to take a walk on that long beach
Everything was withdrawn as far as possible,
indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken,
seabirds in ones or twos.
The rackety, icy, offshore wind
numbed our faces on one side;
disrupted the formation
of a lone flight of Canada geese;
and blew back the low, inaudible rollers
in upright, steely mist.
The sky was darker than the water
--it was the color of mutton-fat jade.
Along the wet sand, in rubber boots, we followed
a track of big dog-prints (so big
they were more like lion-prints). Then we came on
lengths and lengths, endless, of wet white string,
looping up to the tide-line, down to the water,
over and over. Finally, they did end:
a thick white snarl, man-size, awash,
rising on every wave, a sodden ghost,
falling back, sodden, giving up the ghost...
A kite string?--But no kite.
I wanted to get as far as my proto-dream-house,
my crypto-dream-house, that crooked box
set up on pilings, shingled green,
a sort of artichoke of a house, but greener
(boiled with bicarbonate of soda?),
protected from spring tides by a palisade
of--are they railroad ties?
(Many things about this place are dubious.)
I'd like to retire there and do nothing,
or nothing much, forever, in two bare rooms:
look through binoculars, read boring books,
old, long, long books, and write down useless notes,
talk to myself, and, foggy days,
watch the droplets slipping, heavy with light.
At night, a grog a l'américaine.
I'd blaze it with a kitchen match
and lovely diaphanous blue flame
would waver, doubled in the window.
There must be a stove; there is a chimney,
askew, but braced with wires,
and electricity, possibly
--at least, at the back another wire
limply leashes the whole affair
to something off behind the dunes.
A light to read by--perfect! But--impossible.
And that day the wind was much too cold
even to get that far,
and of course the house was boarded up.
On the way back our faces froze on the other side.
The sun came out for just a minute.
For just a minute, set in their bezels of sand,
the drab, damp, scattered stones
were multi-colored,
and all those high enough threw out long shadows,
individual shadows, then pulled them in again.
They could have been teasing the lion sun,
except that now he was behind them
--a sun who'd walked the beach the last low tide,
making those big, majestic paw-prints,
who perhaps had batted a kite out of the sky to play with.
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Added: on September 29th, 2005 at 3:04 PM | Viewed: 4048 times | Comments (1)
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The End Of March - Comments and Information
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Poet: Elizabeth Bishop
Poem: The End Of March
Volume: Geography III
Year: Published/Written in 1976
Comment 1 of 1, added on September 29th, 2005 at 3:04 PM.
The first stanza, Bishop creates a chilly, typical east coast morning towards the end of march, “cold and windy, scarcely the day… rackety, icy, offshore wind” (1,6). Her tone is impartial, matter-of-factly here, no real distraction to distract herself, or the reader from her thoughts, yet is she cold emotionally? The side of their faces is being numbed on one side, and the wind must be strong enough to, “disrupt the formation of… Canada geese” (9). The mention of the lone flight of Canadian geese could reflect on how Bishop feels alone sometime being so far away from her birth place, never really having a home, always moving just like the geese. The reader knows that it is early morning too, “everything was withdrawn…the tide far out” (3, 4) leaving a huge beach there for them to walk on, a fresh beach for a fresh dawn symbolizing hope that a new day is here to achieve new things. In the second stanza, the speaker finds prints in the fresh sand that seem to be lion prints to her, and some white string being tummeled in the surf, and balling into a heap. It is a stanza of discovery, however small and it comes directly before the tone shift into her memories, newly discovered. The wet kite line is symbolizing her “lengths and lengths, endless” (17) amount of memories she has collected over the years, and every once in a while something will trigger certain sections of it to come back to her. The speaker says that finally the string did end, “in a tich white snarl” (20) much how her memories end in a messy, undistinguishable heap. There is parallelism and exact rhyme found in the next two lines, “rising on every wave, a sodden ghost, falling back, sodden, giving up the ghost…” (21-22). The ghosts are Bishop’s memories that come and go, like the waves. She is able to hold them, and then it is too painful perhaps to keep them for long, so she lets them go again. The word sodden has two distinct meanings; in the first line it is to mean thoroughly wet, and in the second expressionless, a bittersweet parting void of emotion. The lack of the kite that belongs to the string is important as well, because what good are either object with out the other? What good are ones memories with out guidance and a proper place? If the kite is Bishop her self, then she has cut herself free of her memories at this point in the poem, and then starts calling on them one by one.
Suddenly the tone changes and the speaker is in her memories, yet she relates them to the present. She wants to get away from her original dream house, and her hiddnen dream house, each house shared with a different woman, and a different part of her life matches thoses places respectively. One can presume that the, “crooked box set up on pilings, shingled green” (25-26) is her house in key west because it is close enough to the water that is needs to be protected from the tide. She was protected there, by a weak looking fence made of what the speaker is not sure; adding that, “many things about [that] place [were] dubious” (31) it is not an updated house, it dose not want to change. That is why she loves it, it is most likely the same now as she holds it in her memories. She wants to retire there and do nothing, read things that are boring and old and long and write down useless things and talk to herself and foggy days. The speaker wants a total escape, from everything; perhaps if she goes back to live in an unchanged memory then she will learn nothing new or useful to shed new light on new ideas, she dosnt’ even want company, just fog. This fog could refer back to her house in brazil with Lota where the fog kept them safe, kept things private, and that place in her mind was wonderful at the time, and she would like to live in thoses memories as well.
The speakers dubious thoughts about the house echo in the third to last stanza as to if there is a stove, the condition of the electricity, yet she knows that there is a chimney. It is as if she is combining memories from different places togther as she talks about the delicate blue flame from the stove, then wonders if there even is a stove. This stanza ends in a rushed, defeated way, impossible, the wind too cold, and, “of course the house was boarded up” (51). Nothing was obtainable there, and then suddenly the speaker switches her tone again to the presnt; the return trip back down the beach, these were here thoughts as she was walking up the beach, away from her present life- a quick morning journey into the past.
In the last section, the sun finally comes out for just a minute. This smaller glimmer of hope on a gray cold morning makes the stones that were high enough cast shadows - “individual shadows, then pulled them in again” (58). The speakers memories that are large enough to leave a shadow in her memory that are triggered by certain moments, smells etc. and then they fade away back into the mass, the abyss of the memories of her collective past. The last three lines are the most striking and the most confusing. Let one assume that the lion sun is the speaker, she holds the power over her own life, and can influence others. She has been in the same place many times walking up and down the beach, and it is she that chooses when to take her memories out and play with them. The speakers response to the landscape says a lot too, she doest not turn her back to the wind, she gets equally chilled on both sides of her body, a good balance between past and present.
nathalie from United States
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The first stanza, Bishop creates a chilly, typical east coast morning towards the end of march, “cold and windy, scarcely the day… rackety, icy, offshore wind” (1,6). Her tone is impartial, matter-of-factly here, no real distraction to distract herself, or the reader from her thoughts, yet is she cold emotionally? The side of their faces is being numbed on one side, and the wind must be strong enough to, “disrupt the formation of… Canada geese” (9). The mention of the lone flight of Canadian geese could reflect on how Bishop feels alone sometime being so far away from her birth place, never really having a home, always moving just like the geese. The reader knows that it is early morning too, “everything was withdrawn…the tide far out” (3, 4) leaving a huge beach there for them to walk on, a fresh beach for a fresh dawn symbolizing hope that a new day is here to achieve new things. In the second stanza, the speaker finds prints in the fresh sand that seem to be lion prints to her, and some white string being tummeled in the surf, and balling into a heap. It is a stanza of discovery, however small and it comes directly before the tone shift into her memories, newly discovered. The wet kite line is symbolizing her “lengths and lengths, endless” (17) amount of memories she has collected over the years, and every once in a while something will trigger certain sections of it to come back to her. The speaker says that finally the string did end, “in a tich white snarl” (20) much how her memories end in a messy, undistinguishable heap. There is parallelism and exact rhyme found in the next two lines, “rising on every wave, a sodden ghost, falling back, sodden, giving up the ghost…” (21-22). The ghosts are Bishop’s memories that come and go, like the waves. She is able to hold them, and then it is too painful perhaps to keep them for long, so she lets them go again. The word sodden has two distinct meanings; in the first line it is to mean thoroughly wet, and in the second expressionless, a bittersweet parting void of emotion. The lack of the kite that belongs to the string is important as well, because what good are either object with out the other? What good are ones memories with out guidance and a proper place? If the kite is Bishop her self, then she has cut herself free of her memories at this point in the poem, and then starts calling on them one by one.
Suddenly the tone changes and the speaker is in her memories, yet she relates them to the present. She wants to get away from her original dream house, and her hiddnen dream house, each house shared with a different woman, and a different part of her life matches thoses places respectively. One can presume that the, “crooked box set up on pilings, shingled green” (25-26) is her house in key west because it is close enough to the water that is needs to be protected from the tide. She was protected there, by a weak looking fence made of what the speaker is not sure; adding that, “many things about [that] place [were] dubious” (31) it is not an updated house, it dose not want to change. That is why she loves it, it is most likely the same now as she holds it in her memories. She wants to retire there and do nothing, read things that are boring and old and long and write down useless things and talk to herself and foggy days. The speaker wants a total escape, from everything; perhaps if she goes back to live in an unchanged memory then she will learn nothing new or useful to shed new light on new ideas, she dosnt’ even want company, just fog. This fog could refer back to her house in brazil with Lota where the fog kept them safe, kept things private, and that place in her mind was wonderful at the time, and she would like to live in thoses memories as well.
The speakers dubious thoughts about the house echo in the third to last stanza as to if there is a stove, the condition of the electricity, yet she knows that there is a chimney. It is as if she is combining memories from different places togther as she talks about the delicate blue flame from the stove, then wonders if there even is a stove. This stanza ends in a rushed, defeated way, impossible, the wind too cold, and, “of course the house was boarded up” (51). Nothing was obtainable there, and then suddenly the speaker switches her tone again to the presnt; the return trip back down the beach, these were here thoughts as she was walking up the beach, away from her present life- a quick morning journey into the past.
In the last section, the sun finally comes out for just a minute. This smaller glimmer of hope on a gray cold morning makes the stones that were high enough cast shadows - “individual shadows, then pulled them in again” (58). The speakers memories that are large enough to leave a shadow in her memory that are triggered by certain moments, smells etc. and then they fade away back into the mass, the abyss of the memories of her collective past. The last three lines are the most striking and the most confusing. Let one assume that the lion sun is the speaker, she holds the power over her own life, and can influence others. She has been in the same place many times walking up and down the beach, and it is she that chooses when to take her memories out and play with them. The speakers response to the landscape says a lot too, she doest not turn her back to the wind, she gets equally chilled on both sides of her body, a good balance between past and present.
nathalie from United States