(Please refer to the previous post to read the poem.)
"Wherever I am / I am what is missing."
The speaker feels able to "complete" any environment. This signals power; nothing is finished without him/her. "In a field / I am the absence of field." The speaker "always" provides the definitive other by which the environment can be identified. How can we know what a field is if we don't know what a field is not?
However, this idea also suggests that the speaker is forcibly fluid in his or her own identity. What can the speaker be other than "not" what is in the environment? The speaker can only be defined in a negative term: not a field, not the air. The speaker's own identity is fluid and transient, while the surroundings use the speaker to form their identities. Add to this the responsibility--even obligation--to be that which keeps things whole and defined. I sense anxiety and sadness in this poem, and a feeling of resignation.
1 comment:
i am truly touched by this poem because to me, it means the narrator regards him/herself as meaningless "...i am the absence/of field..."
also the field may be referring to a crowd of people or people that he/she meets throughout their life. "when i walk/i part the air/and always/the air moves in/to fill the spaces/where my body's been." this could mean when the narrator enters an area, he/she interrupts others in their daily lives. all attention is focussed on that person and others are waiting for him/her to move on so they can continue with life.
"i move/to keep things whole" i understand this as the narrator thinking of him/herself as a bother to everyone and he/she must move on with life (as quickly and unnoticed as possible) and bother everyone equally rather than bothering a few people for a long time in one place.
again, i love this poem however you look at it and i will spend hours reading it over and over.
good poetry is when the author makes you feel how they felt when writing it and i felt a sense of loneliness and like im unwanted, ...but then i return to reality.... ...anyways this poem takes me places where i could not go without it!
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