My Grandmother in the Stars

It is possible we will not meet again

on earth. To think this fills my throat

with dust. Then there is only the sky

tying the universe together.

Just now the neighbor’s horse must be standing

patiently, hoof on stone, waiting for his day

to open. What you think of him,

and the village’s one heroic cow,

is the knowledge I wish to gather.

I bow to your rugged feet,

the moth-eaten scarves that knot your hair.

Where we live in the world

is never one place. Our hearts,

those dogged mirrors, keep flashing us

moons before we are ready for them.

You and I on a roof at sunset,

our two languages adrift,

heart saying, Take this home with you,

never again,

and only memory making us rich.

6. In the work of ONE poet you have studied, consider how they have constructed their materials and their attitudes to remind us that we live in a global village where mutual respect is of utmost importance.

Each poem has its own emotion. When I read My Grandmother In The Stars, I can feel author misses her grandmother so much. She could not see her grandmother again in this world, so she visualised her grandmother as the star in universe. That is very common, people need a thing to place on. Author put all her miss into that star.  In a whole poem, although she misses her, she is not sorrowful. She’s tone shows she still expect future. She is absolutely sad, but she knows she has to continue.

The first stanza is a very beautiful introduction. She did not say her grandmother died in a straightway, which might be not polite. Nobody wants to mention sad things,therefore it is nice to only describe how she feels at that time. It is just simply like if it is sad,then something bad happened, If it is lively which means it is fine. In the stanza,author said she feels dusts in her throat.  It is an emotion that she wants to cry. Everyone had this kind of feeling before whether he or she feels sad or wronged. Author has a dream at this moment that she hopes to see her grandmother. And she knows that is impossible. The farthest distance for author is between she and her grandmother. So then she makes a metaphor that she is the sky above the earth but grandma is one of the star in the universe. They can only look at each other, sadly cannot meet each other. What a pain for them!

When I read the second stanza in the first time, I thought there is no relationship with the first stanza. It describes some trivial matters in normal life. I think author just want to talk to grandma without topics, which people like to do with their close people because they enjoy sharing everything with each other. And grandma is the “partner” for author. Author is not used to live the days without grandma near her yet, hence she writes the things she want to talk in a poem. Everything that is related to death is not allowed to say in the poem because author seems to have not accept the truth that grandma is leaving. There is no word “missing” in this stanza, but what I feel strongest is missing. So I wonder sometimes missing is not necessary to express by using polished,fancy words, however it might be a silence or an uncomfortable condition when someone suddenly realizes she or he has gone.

The last stanza is a little bit contradictory with previous stanzas. Author said their hearts are never in a same place. Maybe they had conflicts before, they might argued for something that old and young usually think differently. Both have strong hearts, they had their own thoughts. However it does not matter now, author releases now. She finally realizes the memories of argument or drifted language are the precious memories. Now what she feels is miss.