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.
I also i see and agree with your view points do you think the person in the poem is a little bet crazy and try harm herself or was try to perform a ritual in which she can find the hitchhikers when she mention alter knife blood etc....and does she finally give up on finding them. This is form from these lines:
ReplyDeleteIn my car, is an altar, sacrificial stone and knife,
the tears of blame and understanding,
and blood; all the blood my body has lost;
Oh, hitchhikers, hitchhikers,
you would not want to travel with me.
You would not want to travel with me.
Well, Ash, as a name, suggests what? and connects up with what other imagery in the poem? same with the way the berries are described...it's always a matter of putting the pieces togehter, finding the patterns...and remember, the berries, the hitchhikers, their heads--all have a significance within the terms of the poem, and the speaker's conflict, that they would not necessarily have outside this context. You're basically on the right track, the what's on the speaker's mind is not so much past lovers (plural) as one particular relationship. See my comments on Christian's and Ashley's blogs in current blogs, and my comments on blogs from previous classes.
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