Preview

Planting a Sequoia

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
362 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Planting a Sequoia
Reflection on Planting a Sequoia by Dana Gioia
The poem is narrated by a father who is mourning the death of his child through the planting of a sequoia tree. I found this poem interesting to read because of the irony that envelops the whole burial ceremony. In his hands, the father holds a small sapling wrapped with the umbilical cord of his demised son, who did not live long enough to grow up and become prosperous in life. In a similar way, the sequoia tree, when aged, bears no fruits. Thus, the tree is a symbol of his son; furthermore, a symbol of hope that the father has in which he wishes that the remains of his child (the umbilical cord) will become part of the burgeoning plant as it will absorb his remnants as nutrients. While the plant is growing, the father will feed the tree the unprecedented care and nurture he was to present to his child, and this willingness is displayed when he says “We will give you what we can—our labor and our soil.”
As time progresses, the father hopes that the plant, which is now part of his child and he a part of it, will outlive his family – the “unborn brothers”, “every niece and nephew”, and the family’s house as well. In the dad’s opinion, the act of planting a tree is compensating for the early death of the child – an act of rebellion against the authority of God - so that the boy lives on, as a sort of reincarnated version in the tree. And we get the sensation of this everlasting life in many stanzas throughout the poem.
The writer, Dana Gioia, contributes to the overall theme of somberness and darkness by using expressions like “rain blackened the horizon” and “the sky above … dull gray.” But she ends a couple of stanzas with phrases that instill hope in both the reader’s and the father’s mind. For example, she uses “a slender shoot against the sunset” in reference to the sequoia tree standing tall and withstanding the hardships of time. If correctly interpreted, this poem will turn out to have an enchanting

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The poem begins with the narrator telling herself, “A few more steps, old feet.” (line 1). The old feet she refers to are the ancestor’s feet, that appear to be old and worn out from the rigorous journey they take. The speaker then goes on to say, “In pale tea I’ll see / me with her, tasting wild grapes” (lines 4-5). This shows her reminder of her ancestors in nature. The pale tea is the symbol of the clean, clear simplicity of nature and when the speaker simplifies herself, to the bare nothingness of nature it reveals to her, her ancestors. Then in the following lines, “at dawn, tasting dew / on tender leaves, another year.” (lines 6-7). The dawn represents a new day, a new start where she can again acknowledge her heritage. After, the speaker says, “her hands still guiding me, / at sunset grinding seeds” (lines 11-12). These hands guiding the speaker, are her ancestors leading her through their stories and nature around…

    • 810 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The relationship between father and son seems to be one of tension and distance as conveyed to the readers at first. For instance, the narrator "looks down" at his father digging, as shown in the second stanza, which can either be interpreted in two ways. One way is that the narrator is situated above his father who is in the fields digging, or another way in which the narrator looks down upon his father and sees no value in his occupation. As shown, the narrator's position is above his father because he has an education, which is reinforced from the start: the narrator is a writer, and most likely received more education than his father who is a potato farmer. The mood reinforces the distant relationship between the father and the son. The mood of the poem at first is solemn and grave. This is exemplified in the onomatopoeia; "a clean, rasping sound" In…

    • 616 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    The second part of the poem ‘Nightfall’ continues the story of the child forty years from ‘Barn owl’, where she had lost her innocence by shooting an owl and this had resulted in a heavy hearted guilt which was caused by her unknowing and stubborn actions. The poem represents death closing in on the father, and the limitations of time on their relationship that was never experienced before in her younger years. The father, who in the first poem is depicted as an “old no-sayer”, is now held in high esteem, he is admired and respected as an “old king”. The extended metaphor “Since there is no more to taste ripeness is plainly all. Father we pick our last fruits of the temporal.” Appeals to our senses and is now an aural metaphor, it illustrates the father’s life becoming fulfilled or ripe, it has come near to its end and the father and child will now spend or pick the last moments of the father’s life together. Over time her appreciation of her father has changed, this is shown through “Who can be what you were?” and “Old King, your marvellous journey’s done.” She has realised the valuable life her father has led and the great loss that will be felt after he is gone. The child, now a grown woman learns another lesson about death, it can be quiet and peaceful, and “Your night and day…

    • 1245 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    It begins with the words, ‘Then suddenly,' this immediately tells us that something significant happened. His father died, and with his death, his mother gave up on life. There is a touch of irony in the passage, because she waited all that time for him to return and it was just a fantasy. The children knew he would never return but in all that time she clung on to that hope. Their father's death ended any reason and happiness that his mother had. The writer conveys an underlying note of blame in this paragraph. He says ‘the coldness of that which killed her.' He explains how his mother was faithful to his father, waited thirty-five years for praise, raised his family and all she expected in return was for him to return to her. In dying he also killed off any dreams for the future that she had. The writer informs us that his mother became ‘simple minded and returned to her youth.' The thin shreds of sanity that she had had finally been severed when his father died. They buried her under the end of the beech-wood, not far from her four year old daughter, this sentence tells us that when she died they buried her near to nature where she was most happy. There is a great deal of sadness in the last…

    • 1094 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thomas maintains a strong emphasis on life and death throughout the poem. He draws a strong correlation between the two in the very beginning of the poem by likening them to explosives. The stem of a blooming, blossoming flower is the fuse, gradually getting smaller and smaller, until the spark reaches the bottom and ignites the explosive, ‘blasting the roots of trees,’ killing us off when we mature and come of age. Again this connection is strengthened when he claims the very stuff we are made of, ‘clay,’ is also used to make the ‘hangman’s lime,’ the material hangmen and undertakers use to cover bodies when they decay. By repeating this concept over and over in each stanza Thomas sets the foundation for his poem and moulds everything else around it, making the poem’s objective clear and firmly planting what he wants to convey to the reader in their memory.…

    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the entire poem, the speaker continuously asks questions debating what makes life worth living. The speaker’s confused mental state is expressed through rhetorical questions. The narrator asks, “Oh cold reprieve, where’s natural relief?” Here, the narrator wonders where he may find an escape from life, from the grief he was told to pursue. The answer is actually from within him. This results in a poem with dialogue between the narrator’s conscience and heart; the heart being the Echo. The Echo’s answer of “Leaf” leads the narrator to reflect on the death of leaves; leaves bloom beautifully and change into various colors. Making “ecstasy” of the flower’s dying process. He wonders, “Yet what’s the end of our life’s long disease? If death is not, who is my enemy,” but then the Echo calls itself the foe. Though leaves age beautifully, people do not, for aging is a disease of life that cannot be escaped.…

    • 428 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    These are only three of many symbols that have far more meaning than what is blatantly told in the novel A Separate…

    • 270 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It is saying that it wants to be there to keep them calm and help them through all the hard times that they will be faced with, and that if they just listen to it, they will be guided to peace. "They hear. They all hear the speaking of the tree. Today, the first and last of every tree speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river. Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river, is another form of personification used by Angelou. (Hagen, 1996, Williams, 1996) The tree is also talking to the people, asking them to plant themselves beside it. It is saying that it is there to hold the person up, to be used at strength, something to lean against, in order to fight away all the hatred in the world. It is there for the person if they are true to themselves and the world & want to keep…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    This is not to say that the boy does not love his tree “And the boy loved the tree very much” (Silverstein n.p.), however, he has never had the burden of reciprocity levied upon him. As a little boy he gathers her leaves and her fruit while using her body for play, but his maturation is accompanied by needs no longer solely dependent upon the tree “I want a wife and I want children, and so I need a house. Can you give me a house?” (Silverstein n.p.). As he ventures out to find his place in the world, his visits are fewer and farther apart; and when he does visit it is to strip her of some other resource. Eventually he returns to his tree, old and tired to claim the very last thing she has to offer, still for his own…

    • 1512 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wrapping in your roots a lock of hair, a piece of an infant’s birth cord,…

    • 631 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Planting a Tree

    • 677 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the essay “Planting a Tree”, the author describes his place of living and its surroundings. The author, Edward Abbey, lives in a little house close to the city Tucson, Arizona with his wife and daughter. Abbey portrays his place of living and the surroundings in a very distinct manner. Despite being surrounded by wild animals, Abbey describes the place as nice. Although, he would like to stay here for a while, but he probably will not. However, before leaving Abbey wants to plant a tree so someone or something can enjoy its shade, or birds, or witness the pale gold of its autumn leaves. Abbey and his family have lived at this place for four years and are now free to leave whenever they wish (Abbey 541).…

    • 677 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the poem “To This Day” by Shane Koyczan, he is talking about bullying and how people are affected by it. The people that are bullying don't even know what they are going through or how much it is hurting them. People wouldn't bully other people if they knew what they were going through the inside. The black and white tree branch symbolizes the kid. The brown tree symbolizes his new family that adopted him. The black and white tree symbolizes the boys real parents that died. Some people act like they are fine but they really are not because they are adopted like the guy that was adopted. The author choose trees because people have family trees and he is entering a new families tree.…

    • 126 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Focus more on what you need than what you want,” is a very important concept in this poem. As the piece states, the boy is constantly asking the tree for things he desires, but in the end he eventually comes back to the tree asking for more. He often approaches the tree time after time sounding unhappy and unsatisfied. “...I'm sorry,’ said the tree, ‘but I have no money…’I want a house to keep me warm,’ he said. ‘I want a wife and I want children, and so I need a house...” The boy used to be happy with the tree as a child, swinging from her branches and eating her apples, but as he grew older, he lost interest in her and eventually lost happiness as well. Towards the end of the poem, the boy realizes he doesn’t need much but silence and rest and not material goods. “...‘I don't need very much now,’ said the boy. ‘just a quiet…

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Our Casuarina Tree

    • 292 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The first two stanzas scrutinize the tree objectively. The following two subjectively analyses its relation with the poetess' own state of being. It connects the immortal tree to the mortal siblings, and thereby renders them…

    • 292 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Our Casuarina Tree

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages

    "Our Casuarina Tree" Toru Dutt: the poetess, while living abroad, is pining for the scenes of her native land and reliving the memories of her childhood. In the first part of the poem the poetess depicts the casuarina tree trailed by a creeper vine like a huge python, winding round and round with the rough trunk, sunken deep with scars. It reached to the height touching very summit near the stars. The casuarina tree stood alone unaccompanied in the compound wearing the scarf of the creeper hung with crimson cluster of flowers among the boughs occupied by the bird and hives of bees humming around. At nights the poetess garden overflowed with the sweet songs of the nestled birds while tired men take rest in its shade. The poetess recalls when the poetess at the dawn used to open the window of her room, her eyes rested upon the casuarina tree and derived a strange kind of delight. And often in the day of winter she happened to see on its crest a gray baboon sitting stunned alone like a statue. It used to wait for the sunrise and its puny kids leapt about and played on lower boughs. Early in the morning the sleepy cows were led to the pastures, and on the way they passed by a broad pond under shadowed by hoar tree, the pond was cover by overlapping and overspreading water lilies flowered like the sheet of snow. The poetess reveals why the casuarina tree was dear to her soul, it was because it she played with her sweet companion and friends whom then the cruel waves of time had scattered like the loosened leaves and she could not see them again; only the sweet memories are left behind; though they are sweet yet painful for those visionary hours can not be fetched back. The poetess grew old but the memories of the sweet moments saved in her mind are still young. The tree is dear to the poetess because it is the sole bond between her past and present, when she recalls it ,a chain of pleasant and poignant memories trains to her mind and again she tastes the flavour of her…

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays