Analysis of A Poem Starts With A Lump in the Throat



I think of my mother sometimes.
Her bangled hands as she hangs up the phone, goodnight beta, jaldi so jaana,
And her sigh as the sounds end.
The curtains of my home are the same. The cups we drink tea in, same–
A different number.
Her bangled hands as she strains the tea. She's busy. She gets busy.
With or without me–
And there is laughter on the dinner table that i am not aware of.
I take a step forward and the world moves with me. Does this not mean that it only moves
When I step forward?
The sunlight flits through my window, disappointed as it does not find the frame of my body lazing on the bed.
The cups do not find the slivers of my fingers curling across their body.
The floor does not find the sounds of my feet padding across–
To open the door when my father gets home;
And my father does not find me when he gets home.
My heart settles amidst new trees and squirrels. But i left something back home,
Something i cannot reach and something they cannot find.
And the something weighs me down sometimes.
Sometimes, when i think of my mother, with her bangled hands,
Reaching to the sky to stroke my face,
And i, compelled by some force–
Raise my face at once,
To the moon.
I rest my head at night and think of the quiet of my home.
The world fades out
Only to fade back in tomorrow–
And the something weighs me down again,
And the something weighs me down, again.


Scheme abcdeffghijfklllmanopqblrsBB
Poetic Form
Metre 11111001 011111101110111 0011011 0101111010111101 010010 011111011101110 11011 011101010101111011 110110001111111111101 11110 0111110010111110111101101 0111101011101001110 01111011111001 11001111011 011011111111 111001110101111011 1011010101101 001011101 0111111101011 101011111 0101111 11111 101 111111011010111 0111 10111001 001011101 001011101
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,408
Words 290
Sentences 20
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 28
Lines Amount 28
Letters per line (avg) 38
Words per line (avg) 10
Letters per stanza (avg) 1,071
Words per stanza (avg) 267

About this poem

the title is inspired from a quote by robert frost, and something i found to be very true as i wrote this poem on a particularly lonely night in my hostel room. i missed my mother then, i miss her now, and writing down this poem helped me settle my thoughts.

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Written on September 29, 2022

Submitted by mohanrashi111 on January 27, 2023

Modified on March 14, 2023

1:27 min read
0

Rashi

(she/they) hi! i'm rashi and i like cats, poetry, and politics. i study law at gujarat national law university and i'm in my first year. more…

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    Who wrote the poem "The Road Not Taken"?
    A Robert Frost
    B Langston Hughes
    C Walt Whitman
    D Emily Dickinson