The Hitchhikers.

This poem literally describes a woman driving down a road lined with ash trees covered bright red berries. I may be internalizing the whole poem, or reading the obvious, but I feel like this poem is about a woman who is traveling down the metaphoric road of her life, and is musing about the lovers she's picked up along the way, and is mourning her current isolation in that journey. I think she is a woman who has failed in a marriage because of the lines "thinking of the two years I spent with you,/ reliving them over and over,/ knowing I had everything I wanted,/ but like Midas was silent and stiff with the gold I had touched,/ felt always as if I had been buried under a ton of diamonds," She had the perfect companion down that road, but it all just left her feeling trapped under the imaginary weight of her wedding ring. She is looking at her failure and gives her own admit-ion that she isn't meant to have a companion "Oh, hitchhikers, hitchhikers,/ you would not want to travel with me./You would not want to travel with me"

I may be completly off the mark in my interpretation I found this poem very, very challenging, I cant even remotely ascertain the importance of the Ash trees, nor the berries. Its something I will continue to ponder. 

She Had Some Horses.

Doing some research after reading this poem I found out that Harjo was a Native American woman living in the contemporary American world. I also learned this poem is written in the form of a Native American chant, which suggests to me that she was trying to find a way to relate her experiences through the eyes of her culture . The poem literally describes a collection of horses a woman has been through.  In an attempt to interpret this poem I would say that the "horses" could represent two things, and possibly both, or at least the effects of both, I would say they are either people, or her conceptions of the how the people outside of the Native American culture have effected her- and possibly the inclusion of both. In any case each horse seems to be a collection of somber events, mistaken choices, failed philosophies, and heartbreaks. The last line of the poem says "These were the same horses." I believe that line is as in a lot of poems the most important line because it sums all of these past experiences or people (depending which metaphor I'm working with) and saying they're all the same leaves me thinking a few things- They all left her in the same place emotionally / they were all people outside her culture. In any case I found this poem to be very interesting, and something a lot of people could take their own message from and relate to, I know I thought of a few bad choices I made in people, and events as I read through it.

The Mother by Gwendolyn Brooks

This poem is very, very sad. It discusses all the things that will never be because a child has been aborted. Its tell of how the mother will never be the mother, never care for her child, never take a moment just to marvel at your child (Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye). She says of what the children will never have "Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, /and your deaths,. She says she has stolen the life they would have lived from the. "If I stole your births and your names, /Your straight baby tears and your games, /Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches,  and your deaths,/ If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths"and she asks for forgiveness "Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.". This poem is a confession and a eulogy all at once. I wonder in the poem though when she refers to the abortions, were they her own, is she discussing the procedure in a general sense, or was she helping abortions to take place. I seem to find some meaning in the one worded last line of the poem "All." I dont believe she is discussing her own aborted children, but more so abortion in a general sense, and I find a lot of pity for her in the last stanza. She keeps repeating "Believe me, I loved you all." and with the last line of "All." she signs her confession.