Two Deaths

Credit: Devil's eye | by Il conte di Luna

The speaker sees two creatures who have died in a violent way, and reflects on the impression these shocking experiences have made on her.

It was only a film,
Perhaps I shall say later
Forgetting the story, left only
With bright images- the blazing dawn
Over the European ravaged plain,
And a white unsaddled horse, the only calm
Living creature. Will only such pictures remain?

The first lines of the poem show a speaker that appears to be reassuring herself after watching a film that was evidently shocking and made an impact on her feelings. She wonders if with time she will forget the story focusing on the fact that it was not real, and be only left  with “bright images”. The adjective “bright” seems to anticipate beautiful views, but there are many unsettling elements in the detailed description of the images that suggest that “bright” refers just to highly saturated colours: a white horse against the tones of red of a blazing dawn.  The word “ravaged” implies a war, and the phrase “(...) the only calm/ living creature” suggests that all the surroundings are full of destruction, pain, desperation, and death. The caesura after “living creature” seems to stress its isolation.

Or shall I see
The shot boy, running running
Clutching the white sheet on the washing line,
Looking at his own blood like a child
Who never saw blood before, and feels defiled,
A boy dying without dignity
Yet brave still, trying to stop himself from falling
And screaming- his white girl waiting just out of calling?

The second stanza is about the death scene in the film  which is minutely described. At the centre of it is a boy that has been shot and is dying. The repetition of “running” and the use of the gerund for the different actions before the boy expires extends the duration of the scene and hints at the tension created. The lines are longer than in the first stanza and there are fewer caesuras. The reading pace is faster and it recreates the movements of the boy.

The red and white colours of the first stanza reappear. The white sheet on the washing line could have created a  sensation of purity and peacefulness but death spoils the atmosphere, tainting it with the red of the boy´s blood. The impure nature of death is conveyed by the words “defiled” and “without dignity”.

Although his death is imminent, the boy still tries to fight against death. This makes the climate even more moving, as the boy refuses to give up. The fact that there is a “girl waiting just out of calling” further accentuates this idea. Once again, the word “white” is used to show the purity of the girl contrasting with the boy she is waiting for, who is covered in blood. The possessive adjective “his” suggests a love relationship that will be destroyed.

The speaker wonders if she will remember this shocking scene instead of the setting of it, described in the first stanza.

I am ashamed not to have seen anyone dead
Anyone I know, I mean;
Odd that yesterday also
I saw a broken cat stretched on a path
Not quite finished. Its gentle head
Showed one eye staring, mutely beseeching
Death, it seemed. All day
I have thought of death, of violence and death,
Of the blazing Polish light, of the cat’s eye:
I am ashamed I have never seen anyone die

In the third stanza, the persona confesses her shame for not having seen any of her acquaintances die. Evidently, this thought is brought about by the film and also by another experience she had the day before: finding a dying cat, who seemed to be silently imploring death to take it away. It is another violent death, but the animal´s attitude is different from the boy´s : whereas the cat wishes to die and accepts his fate in silence, the boy in the film fought bravely against it and unavailingly  screamed one last message to his girl.

These different attitudes to death seem to have haunted her. The hyperbaton and the caesura after “all day” emphasise the amount of time these sights have occupied her mind for.  Her musings on the topic of death have made her feel ashamed of her little experience with death in the real world of her acquaintances. Her feelings of shock and pity for the boy and the cat have given way to a feeling of shame for not having seen anyone die. If a fictional death and the death of an animal have made such an impact on her, one wonders what it would be like for her to be witness to the death of somebody close.

Natasha Wodovosoff- Lucila Torres