Poetic Imagery: Mi Abuelo by Alberto Rios

Out of the three poems, the first two hardly had but one or two symbols throughout. They were so short, that they hardly had enough time to get but a small message across to the reader, or atleast that 's how I saw it. However, Alberto Rios 's "Mi Abuelo" had many images which made my brain tingle with excitement for writing this paper. Besides the fact that it had the most imagery, it also was the most interesting and best imagery in my opinion.

The poem starts out with Rios indirectly pointing out that his abuelo, or grandfather, is already passed away and buried. Even though his grandpa has passed on, he still is connected to the modern world "like an Indian with his ear at the tracks." Now, I 've never heard of an Indian with his ear to tracks which I assume are train tracks. However, Indians did press their ear to the ground to hear if animals were near because the sound of feet does travel well through ground, but travels even better through a more solid substance like a steel train track. So, I can imagine that an Indian could pretty much hear anything and everything through that steel train track, just as his grandfather could hear everything from his grave. Now this metaphorical steel track helps his grandfather whisper the future into listeners ' ears. Even after his death, "he whispers what will happen to a man in town or how he will meet the best dressed woman tomorrow and how the best man at her wedding will chew the ground next to her." The grandfather lives on within his former household. His presence is still there "through all the mouths in my house." His sayings and knowledge still hovers around the family 's house. The words of wisdom which he spread to the youngsters still ring in their ears from memories and restate the advice to one another. The advice doesn 't go without a bit of humor, though. Rios states, "An echo of me hitting the pipe sometimes to stop him from saying my hair is a sieve." A sieve, being a metal strainer like one you