The Widow's Lament in Springtime Isolation Quotes

Although it doesn't make a big entrance, isolation has already slipped in the door. What is a yard? Well, it's a space around our house that sits between us and the street and the neighbors. So already we have a little mental image of sorrow creating a buffer between our speaker and the world.

This heartbreaking little statement drives home just how alone our speaker feels. For thirty-five years, there was someone else in the house. Now, there's no one.

Wait a second, she has a son? Where did he come from? (Does she have a daughter too? More sons? Grandkids?) What's really surprising, and sad, about this line is that there is so little to-do about the son. The fact that her son is around and speaking to her doesn't seem to bring her out of isolation at all.

All these descriptive clauses ("in the meadows, at the edge […]") delay our arrival at the actual image, which is of a place that was only seen from a distance, by someone else, and then told to our speaker. That seems pretty indirect to Shmoop. There are so many layers of separation here we don't know where to begin. But, somehow, we feel like that distance is exactly what appeals to our speaker.

If we look at it a little differently, we might conclude that this ending is not only about escape or relief through death, though it most certainly is that, too. It's also about a reunion, as she imagines joining her body to the natural world and maybe even joining her husband in death.