After the Wedding

Life After The Wedding In the poem “After The Wedding,” by Faith Shearin, simile and imagery work together to show the overall themes of love and what comes with it. The majority of the similes used in the poem involve imagery. They paint a vivid picture of the poem in the reader’s mind and make it much easier for the reader to follow along with the poem. The imagery used in this poem shows everything in love and a relationship from the time two people fall in love to death. In “After The Wedding,” Faith Shearin uses simile throughout. “Answers come the way babies come: as kisses leave the lips, as hearts love, or cease to beat, and the world is made different in a day.” This is just one example of the usage of simile in the poem. Here, she is saying that the answers to the previously mentioned questions, “When did you come? Who did you meet? Who did you make? How did you fall away?” come naturally. One should not have to think about kisses. They just happen. It should be a moment of passion for two people and it should take both of them away to a place of bliss and love. The answers to these questions come as hearts come to love. It is not a decision. Love is really not worth worrying about and thinking about because there is little to nothing one can do about it. It just happens, whether you like it or not. But that is what makes it so great. Just like the answer to these questions, it comes without thinking. Faith Shearin uses imagery alongside of the similes to further display the theme to the reader. “My parents, weary from days of standing, drop their shoes to the floor like stones.” In this excerpt, Faith Shearin uses the simile “Drop their shoes to the floor like stones.” Within this simile, she shows that the shoes are a burden. They are big and heavy and they really do not matter to the speaker’s parents, who are the people dropping the shoes. The shoes are nothing but an unnecessary load that the parents are eager to get rid of, and dropping them provides a huge relief due to their weary state. The similes and the imagery included in this poem point to everything that goes along with love. On the surface, the poem is about a wedding. The perspective comes first person from someone who was involved in the wedding. As one reads the poem, though, it is evident that there is a deeper meaning. The poem is not just about a wedding. The poem is about the cycle of life, and the wedding is just one part of it. “Answers come the way babies come: as kisses leave the lips, as hearts love, or cease to beat, and the world is made different in a day.” This quote, alone, is a short summary of life. Life is natural and spontaneous and there is nothing you can do to control it. One day can change a life, and even the world, forever. Every day changes lives and changes the world forever. There are events that everybody experiences in life that affect their lives ands the world around them. “As kisses leave the lips, as hearts love, or cease to beat.” These are three major milestones in the cycle of life that everybody goes through. Kisses leave the lips in a beautiful spontaneity, the heart finds itself falling in love with another, and eventually hearts cease to beat. These are not decisions that people make, but things that happen naturally through the course of life. Life is delicate. It is so big, so daunting, yet it can be completely changed in just a day or sometimes even less. The similes and the imagery in “After The Wedding” by Faith Shearin not only make it easier to understand the meaning that comes on the surface of the poem, but also reveal a hidden theme that comes with more thought on the subject. Life is beautiful. It is huge and natural and uncontrollable, but can still be changed in a day. Through Shearin’s use of simile and imagery, she clearly paints a picture of the scene for the reader. She makes the theme of love obvious throughout the poem shows what comes with it. From the first kiss, to marriage, to children, all the way to death, Faith Shearin covers everything in this short poem.