Love Poem

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2005

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Love Is Not a Poem

Linda Pastan entitles her poem “Love Poem,” and yet, the speaker only expresses the desire to write a poem—she does not directly qualify this poem as one (except in the title). The spring melt and resultant flood works as a metaphor for love in that the phenomena echoes the experience of a first love—fast and all-encompassing, a rush. Pastan’s speaker, though, is not experiencing this rush for the first time, but is standing with her beloved on the “dangerous / banks” (Lines 6-7) of “our creek” (Line 3). The danger, if no less dangerous, is a known quantity. The speaker wants her poem to be “as headlong” (Line 2) as the wild waters, but holds her own head above the torrent, to “watch it” (Line 7).

The poet cannot create a poem like the creek, which indiscriminately carries “with it every twig / every dry leaf and branch” (Lines 8-9). A poem cannot contain everything “in its path” (Line 10); a poem steers toward concision. A rushing stream does not edit or make choices, as the poet surely does, even when writing about love.

Love, as an unstoppable force, will roll right over “every scruple” (Line 11). The poem, however, will stand on its integrity, will be shaped by its character. The poem—this poem—is not afraid of a directive toward caution, nor is it embarrassed by its desire for dry shoes. The poem says, “step back” (Line 18). Which is not to say that the poem is not about love, or is not passionate. In this scenario, however, the poem honors its etymological roots: Poem, from the Greek, is literally a thing made, created, or composed. Though it may be nurtured, kindled, and grasped at—love happens. At which point, the poet can write about it.

Life Is Both Predictable and Sudden

Nature provides endless opportunities for metaphor, as well as frameworks by which to compare human experience. In “Love Poem,” the speaker wants to create a written work that communicates the ferocity of a raging creek. The speaker wants to say that their love is overflowing, and overwhelming, that its direction is “headlong” (Line 2), heedless of any peril ahead. The speaker lets the reader know that the creek is not perennially wild and heedless, but is so “after thaw” (Line 4). The mention of a melt indicates that time is something that can be measured. The speaker and her beloved have seen this before, perhaps every spring after the winter melt. The violence of the creek is something the two can stand back and witness. For a time, the landscape will suffer the effects of too much water. Eventually, the creek will return to its more typical state. Come summer, it could even dry up.

Events in human life, though typical (and even inevitable), have the power to catastrophically upset the terrain, if temporarily. Death and illness have a way of introducing chaos to the everyday. Couples may take stock of one another after the children are grown and wonder where to go from there. They may wonder who they are to one another now that they are alone together once again. Ageing happens, winters come and go, and spring bursts its banks at each departure—thrillingly, and like clockwork.

Although the speaker and her beloved are seeing something that is familiar to them, she does not confuse familiarity with complacence. It is possible to get your “shoes /

soaked” (Lines 21-22); it is possible to be washed away with the loose debris. Together, the speaker says, they must “step back” (Line 18), they “must grab each / other” (Lines 19-20). Life comes at one with force, and regularly. The poet seems to say: Hold on to someone.

The Beloved as Anchor

The speaker wants to write “a love poem as headlong / as our creek” (Lines 1-3), but instead provides a lexicon of caution. The two lovers do not run and chase one another, and they do not lie on the “dangerous / banks” (Lines 6-7)—they “stand” (Line 5) and they “watch” (Line 7). No passionate abandon governs this poem. And yet, there is the fact of the two familiars positioning themselves to witness the violence of this event. They can see what the rushing water can do. It erodes the bank, and strips loose anything that gets “in its path” (Line 10). They, too, are in its path.

It is possible to weather the event, even up close, the speaker says, as long as they “grab / each other” (Lines 16-17). While this grabbing is not the kind of grabbing one associates with passion or sexual play, the physical action nonetheless signals a passionate intensity between these two people. That said, it does not discount or deny the possibility of sex. When the speaker says, and repeats, that they “must / grab each other” (Lines 22-23), she is saying that they must shore one another up against the raging current. The directive serves to remind the reader, as well, that the speaker sought to write a “headlong” (Line 2) poem. Safety is only one reason for the speaker to insist that they hold tightly to one another. The speaker’s directive is a call, too, to remember the physical nature of love, so as not to let that slip away. A mature love may look different from the onset of passion, but neither is it dead in the water.