She kept an antique shop – or it kept her.
Among Apostle spoons and Bristol glass,
The faded silks, the heavy furniture,
She watched her own reflection in the brass
Salvers and silver bowls, as if to prove
Polish was all, there was no need of love.
And I remember how I once refused
To go out with her, since I was afraid.
It was perhaps a wish not to be used
Like antique objects. Though she never said
That she was hurt, I still could feel the guilt
Of that refusal, guessing how she felt.
Later, too frail to keep a shop, she put
All her best things in one narrow room.
The place smelt old, of things too long kept shut,
The smell of absences where shadows come
That can’t be polished. There was nothing then
To give her own reflection back again.
And when she died I felt no grief at all,
Only the guilt of what I once refused.
I walked into her room among the tall
Sideboards and cupboards – things she never used
But needed; and no finger marks were there,
Only the new dust falling through the air.
In this poem poet describes her grandmother and her relationship with her grandmother.
Poet starts with saying that her grandmother kept an antique shop or it kept her. These lines describes her loneliness. The only thing she had was her antique shop and it was the means of her living. She has apostle spoons, Bristol glass, silk and heavy furniture in her shop. She keeps all the things clean and polished and she can see her reflection in it.
In next stanza poet remembers one incident with her grandmother. Once her grandmother asked poet to go out with her but poet refuses. Grandmother did not tell if she hurt but now poet feels guilty for her refusal.
Now she was old and so she is not able to run the shop. She puts all her things in one narrow room. Now grandmother dies and poet go to that room. The room smelt old and the things were shut for too long and there was absence of her grandmother. Now nobody was polishing the things and so she could not see her reflection.
When poet's grandmother dies she feels no pain, just guilt for her refusal to go outside with her. She walks in the room seeing tall sideboards and cupboards. There were no finger marks of anyone but just new dust falling through the air.
A man's destination is his own village, His own fire, and his wife's cooking; To sit in front of his own door at sunset And see his grandson, and his neighbour's grandson Playing in the dust together. Scarred but secure, he has many memories Which return at the hour of conversation, (The warm or the cool hour, according to the climate) Of foreign men, who fought in foreign places, Foreign to each other. A man's destination is not his destiny, Every country is home to one man And exile to another. Where a man dies bravely At one with his destiny, that soil is his. Let his village remember. This was not your land, or ours: but a village in the Midlands, And one in the Five Rivers, may have the same graveyard. Let those who go home tell the same story of you: Of action with a common purpose, action None the less fruitful if neither you nor we Know, unt...
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