The minefield

It is truly amazing to me how past experiences mold and shape us into the personalities we become. Great or terrible- everybody’s experiences are interpreted differently and then executed through their actions differently. All of our actions are the consequences of our decisions. Whether those decisions are consciously made, or not, they happen, and so does the ripple effect of events. Although I believe that this is very relative to us as individuals, I don’t believe, however that people in general are aware of how impactful they are with their actions. We almost never acknowledge that the simplest of choices have the capability of altering the paths our lives take. Diane Thiel, author of the poem “The Minefield”, exhibits a seemingly insignificant decision’s ability to change a life; using split chronology, cloudy imagery, and by drawing parallels in the images of the past and present. Thiel creates a poem that informs readers of an often disregarded principle and theme: life is short, and even the most ephemeral of moments have the power to alter the lives of people forever.
The first stanza has a dream-like quality, like the images, Thiel tells us and helps capture the reader’s attention and instantly we paint the picture of two carefree teens running happily through a field. At the poem’s start an unnamed boy is “running with his friend….somewhere between Prague and Dresden.” The fact that their location remains unknown already leaves us with an ambiguous surrounding image of the running boys. We then sense that one boy is more important than the other because “his friend is faster” and knows “a shortcut through the fields.” The two adolescents are starving because they haven’t eaten all day. Though this fact would not make me think something is odd, like two playful teen boys being too preoccupied with their own clowning around to realize their hunger, I already felt that there I was something wrong because of the vagueness of the images. The imagery puts