Planting a Sequoia

Planting a Sequoia is a poem written by Dana Gioia, and it’s about a man planting a tree, to commemorate the death and birth of his son. This poem has three main themes which would be life and death, tradition and grief. The poem starts off with the voice of the father who is speaking to his dead son as he starts to plant a tree and explains the tradition in Sicily, Italy where at the birth of the first son, the father would normally plant a fig or olive tree. But to his son that died, he plants a sequoia with a lock of hair and the umbilical cord which personalizes the tree, and gives a stronger representation of the dead son to the father.

The main theme of the poem is life and death. The Sequoia would represent an everlasting life, since a sequoia tree would normally last two thousands of years.
The sequoia would represent the rebirth of the dead child, which is proven in the poem when he puts a lock of the child’s hair and the umbilical cord before he plants it.
The father speaks to the tree as if it’s his own son, referring it as ‘you’ ‘wrapping in your roots’ and ‘we plant you in the corner’.
The planting of the tree also gives the idea of giving up on one life for the creation of a new one, which is going to live forever.
Death is an important theme, because the author wants the reader to perceive the idea that there is no greater pain for a parent who has lost a child, but at the same time the poem is are celebrating the planting of the tree knowing that it is now in a better place.
Another symbolism for life would be the fruit that grows in the tree, in the last verse of the first stanza ‘A promise of new fruit in other autumns’, Dana Gioia mentions for the first time his hope for a rebirth, it might represent the development from seed to fruit, which might be similar to the process of growth from a newborn to an adult.

The theme of tradition and custom is also very clear throughout the poem; the whole process of planting the tree is part of a ritual for Sicilians when the first son is born to praise the birth as mentioned on the second stanza. However the father of the deceased child is making his own tradition by planting it at the death which in this case came straight after the birth.
In this occasion the father breaks all the rules of tradition when instead of a mere and weak fig and olive tree he decides to pant a giant and strong sequoia that never dies. This is because the father feels like the son deserves something grand to commemorate his son, and it is also might be because of the expectations he might have had for the child before he was born but died before he ever had the chance to satisfy them. For that reason maybe the father made it happen, even without having the child to try so he can live a much better and longer life.
When the poet explains the tradition of the tree planting, the tone of speech changes from the rest of the poem where he sounds as if he is speaking to his son. For example right in the beginning ‘in sicily a father plants a tree to celebrate his first son’s birth-‘ this first line sounds like it came out of a book, while in the second stanza he is talking with a very warm tone to the son. ‘We kneel in the cold planting you-‘. The tone of the author varies from stanza to stanza. Sometimes it sounds like he is missing the child deeply, and feels disappointed that he never got the chance to get to know him. At other times Dana Gioia sounds hopeful that he is another place.

The last theme is Grief. The poem’s tone sounds a lot like the father is mourning for the death of the son, and as if he will always regret the fact that he will never get to really know the child that he lost even though they are family, and even if they ‘give what they can’ they will never know him the way they could if he was still alive.
Also another event that might relate to the theme of grief is in the very last stanza when the author hints the future death of all of the family ‘unborn brothers dead, every niece and nephew scattered’ and ‘his mother’s beauty ashes in the air’, Dana Gioia wants him to be happy about the eternal life ahead of him, to get along with the future generations to come, even if they don’t know about the symbolism of the tree’s birth.
‘Silently keeping the secret of your birth’ is the final line of the last stanza. This sentence could try to show that the tree might represent an intimate father-to-son moment that nobody else knows about; which could explain that the planting of the tree is just a private place where he can find peace and be with the son alone at all times, without ever losing him for a second time.
The alliteration in that final line sounds like somebody is shushing somebody, maybe to emphasize that the planting and the reason of the tree is a secret.