Comment 5 of 5, added on December 4th, 2009 at 10:49 AM.

I LOVE THIS POEM!!!!!!!!

Savannah Burleson from United States

Comment 3 of 5, added on March 12th, 2006 at 5:59 PM.

This poem dramatizes the conflict between a dead woman and all of the people she imagines, or hopes, that would be digging on her grave, now that she has died. It starts with the woman wondering if her husband is digging near her grave to plant flowers (1&2). She then remembers that just one day ago, her husband married a woman who came from money (3&4). He justifies that his deceased wife won’t be hurt by him having a new lover because his wife is dead (5&6).
The dead woman asks if a close relative is digging on her grave (7&8). She pictures her relatives sitting and thinking “There’s no reason to plant flowers or keep up her gravesite because it won’t release her from the gripping finality of death.” (9-12).
The woman proceeds to ask if it is her enemy digging at her grave (13). She thinks that her enemy is just defacing her gravesite to restate her everlasting hatred toward the woman (14). However, she rules that out too, because when she “passed the Gate that shuts on all flesh sooner or later (15&16)”, her enemy decided that the dead woman was no longer worth her hatred, and didn’t even care where she was buried at (17&18).
In line 19, the dead woman finally gives up, and wants to know, since she hasn’t guessed (20). Then, her dog replies to his dear mistress that it is him, her little dog, who still lives nearby (21&22). The dog says that he hopes that his digging hasn’t bothered her (23&24).
The woman finally realizes that it’s her dog, and wonders why she didn’t realize it earlier (25&26). She praises the dog, saying that he was the only one she left behind that stayed true and remembered her (27). She exclaims that there isn’t any other feeling among other humans that are better than the faithfulness of a good dog (28&29).
That turns out to be quite ironic because the dog states that the only reason that he dug on her grave was “To bury a bone, in case [he] should be hungry near this spot when passing on [his] daily trot” (30-33). The dog apologizes because he completely forgot that his mistress was buried there (34&35).

Jordan Miedema from United States