DEATH !

“Windowgrave” Vs. “Reading the Obituary Page”

 

Death is the total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions of a living organism; the end of an individual or animals life.  The two poems I have chosen are very unique in how they approach death.  The poem “Windowgrave” by Eamon Grennan address death as either going to heaven or hell, whereas the poem “Reading the Obituary Page” by Linda Pastan address death as a continuous life cycle.

After reading “Windowgrave”, I came to the conclusion that poet is describing death from an insect point of view but is really referring the message towards humans. The poet describes how “The dead bee lies on the window ledge, a relic” meaning a surviving memorial of something past (Grennan 1).  That line makes me think of how people attend a funeral and how they remember that individual’s life when they once were alive. Then the poem defines how an individual is put away in their caskets and buried by saying the “dust gathering on every follicle/ and on the geodesic dome of the head—all tucked in/ and tucked away, so neat is death (3-5). I like how the poet also describes how the insects are “lying on their sides as if /asleep” whereas human lay on their backs (6-7). The approach of the message is further expressed as he continue to demonstrate how they are taking “just a quick nap and they’ll be up and off/ about their business” (7-8). This demonstrates us as people that when we die it is just a short nap and we will be resurrected into new life. The fact that the poet described how “the air [is] crowded and loud with leftover angels”, expresses how they are happy and rejoicing that their souls are rising up into to God’s kingdom.  The impression the poet gives about the spider makes me think that the spider is someone who doesn’t believe in God simply because he explains that it has “fallen/ from grace but walking on air, vigilant in ways/ that harden the heart” (11-13).  Hardness of the heart describes a negative condition in which the person rejects the gracious offer of God to be a part of his or her life; which ultimately leads them to hell.

Dissimilar to “Windowgrave”, Linda Pastan’s poem “Reading the Obituary Page” approaches death differently in a way that she focuses more on the cycle of death. The poem begins describing the clothes of young boys and girls, “In starched dresses/ with ribbons/ in miniature jackets/ and tiny ties”, something that they would wear in a casket (Pastan 1-4). But, the boys and girls are all dressed up because they are at a birthday party and at the party they play a game of musical chairs. The narrator illustrates how “[they] would circle/ the chairs/ at birthday parties and/ when the music/ stopped, lunged/ to be seated” (6-10). The narrator reveals to the readers that during the cycle of death there is always going to be one individual that loses a chair, meaning loses his or her life. I love how the poet phrased the last line in the poem when she says, “One/ by one we were welcomed/ to hard ground/ and empty air (10-13). As the game of musical chairs continues, there will always be one person that will no longer have a chair in life, but a place in the ground.

However, both poems were amazingly interesting in the way it described death. Even though “Windowgrave” was more about dying and going to heaven or hell and “Reading the Obituary Page” focused more on the cycle of death they both explained death in a very unique way.