You think, It is a prison. No,
it is a vast resonating chamber in
which each thing you say or do is
new, but the same.
“If See No End In Is” is a poem about the acceptance of finality of life. It contemplates about fears of an unfulfilled life, of hopes and dreams, the finite and the infinite of the process of life. The poem has a rather depressing start, with an image of looking back at one’s life and feeling that it is “ruin”. Life is compared to prison, where every choice leads to the same destination. But the speaker argues in these lines that it is not a prison, but a “resonating chamber” in which each experience resonates with the previous one.
You let all the parts of that thing you would
Cut out of you enter your poem…
“The Old Man at the Wheel” could be seen as a partially autobiographical poem which talks about poet’s motives for writing poetry, as contained in these lines. These lines suggest that poetry for the poet is a form of cleansing of negativity of the soul. The poet let parts of himself that he would cut out enter his poem, suggesting that he is unsatisfied, unhappy or in any other way burdened by those parts.
something crowded
inside us always craving to become something
glistening outside us
“Visions at 74” is a poem, as the title suggests, about philosophy of life shared at the old age, about one’s self-awareness and one’s own passing existence. These lines are about people’s desire to become something, someone important, to strive for the stars, to “become something glistening”. “Something crowded” suggests the inner turmoil that doesn’t allow people to be content, at peace with where they are and who they are.
