to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.
I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.
We are all on our own at one point in life,we walk through our own paths and want to find our place in this world.I think this phrase"to be among those in the know, or else be alone", means that people want to be recongized or perhaps famous instead of being a nobody.I believe in the last stanza the poet wants to understand himself and find out his identity.
ReplyDeleteThe author in the poem to me seems to be putting himself down and belittling himself in the first lines of the poem, but in the lines after, he wants to find his identity. When he says that "I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection", he wants to be like someone else and seems to just follow what people think it's cool or right. But then he says that he wants to unfold, he shows that he does want to find his identity. Also, when he says that, "want to describe myself like a picture I observed for a long time...", he wants to know himself to the point of knowing every detail of that picture.
ReplyDeleteThe author tries to show how people try to copy other ideas and images to make people become more similar to each other. The ending stanza tells the desires he wants. He doesn’t want to be alone, and brings a lot of conflicts towards him that he cannot deal with. He is in the “deadliest storm” trying to fit in and not to be lonely. He looks in the mirror to see his own reflection, and sees life that he become, maybe errors he has done and wish he hadn’t done.
ReplyDeleteAs I read the poem, biblical references came into mind. For example,"I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone enough/to truly consecrate the hour./I am much too small in this world, yet not small/enough/
ReplyDeleteto be to you just object and thing/dark and smart." A passage in the bible quotes God telling one of his servants that because His servant is neither hot nor cold, He will vomit him out of His mouth. These allusions correlate because the speaker of the poem is neither alone nor accompany and small nor small enough to be useful to God.
This keeps going on about mirroring "your image to its fullest perfection." The speaker wants to image someone's perfected image. According to the bible, God made men in his image and it also states that God equals perfection. The Speaker is indeed seeking for his/her identity but wants it to be perfected. He/she wants to be like God; wants to know it all or know nothing "to be among those in the know,
or else be alone".
The ending sentence is a metaphor and foreshadows what the speaker will be like once his/her identity(true self) is found. He/she will not "sink" when difficult circumstances(deadliest storms) come along because he/she will have a determined identity like that of God's that will keep him/her strong.