Horses in Snow
By Roberta Hill They are a gift I have wanted again. Wanted: One moment in mountains when winter got so cold the oil froze before it could burn. I chopped ferns of hoarfrost from all the windows and peered up at pines, a wedding cake by a baker gone mad. Swirls by the thousand shimmered above me until a cloud lumbered over a ridge, bringing the heavier white of more flurries. I believed, I believed, I believed it would last, that when you went out to test the black ice or to dig out a Volkswagon filled with rich women, you’d return and we’d sputter like oil, match after match, warm in the making. Wisconsin’s flat farmland never approved: I hid in cornfields far into October, listening to music that whirled from my thumbprint. When sunset played havoc with bright leaves of alders, I never mentioned longing or fear. I crouched like a good refugee in brown creeks and forgot why Autumn is harder than Spring. But snug on the western slope of that mountain I’d accept every terror, break open seals to release love’s headwaters to unhurried sunlight. Weren’t we Big Hearts? Through some trick of silver we held one another, believing each motion the real one, ah, lover, why were dark sources bundled up in our eyes? Each owned an agate, marbled with anguish, a heart or its echo, we hardly knew. Lips touching lips, did that break my horizon as much as those horses broke my belief? You drove off and I walked the old road, scolding the doubles that wanted so much. The chestnut mare whinnied a cloud into scrub pine. In a windless corner of a corral, four horses fit like puzzle pieces. Their dark eyes and lashes defined by the white. |
Analysis
By: Ethan Engdahl Throughout the poem “Horses in Snow”, written by Roberta Hill Whiteman, the narrator, Hill Whiteman, uses voice, language, structure, and tone to create a story. The story of Hill Whiteman’s struggle in the mountains and the belief that she has to push on. She uses phrases such as, “winter got so cold the oil froze before it could burn.” She thoroughly describes the scene so the meaning can be even more evident. Without the background of the cold snowy mountain the story is not as interesting or intriguing. Hill Whiteman uses first person to help deepen the personal struggle that the poem conveys. For example, “I crouched like a good refugee in brown creeks… But snug on the western slope of that mountain I’d accept every terror.” The way that Hill Whiteman ties the geography of the area and the will to strive for better things together is incredible. She uses informal language thats allows for the reader to feel more connected to the story and to her. If she had written the poem in a more formal manner it would have been harder to relate to the struggles that she goes through. She says, “I believe, I believe, I believe,” in a way that reassures herself that everything remains okay and that she can continue to drive past obstacles in life like this mountain. The horses in this poem are the symbol of hope. They are the thing that Hill Whiteman needs to strive to be like. After she walks up the road she comes to a corral. “In the windless corner of a corral four horses fit like puzzle pieces.” For a brief moment in time these horses were held in one place. The were not in control of their destiny. This takes place in a stanza where depressing things happen. Such as Hill Whiteman being dropped off and having to walk. The horses were then trapped in this corral. It is symbolic because no matter how tough life can get the good is always out there. The tone of the narrator is darker and depressed during that stanza but in the next the narrator is lighter and provides that same feel of determination and persistence that was in the beginning of the poem. “The colt kicked his hind, loped from the fence. The mares and a stallion galloped behind, lifting and leaping finding each other in full accord with the earth and their bodies.” after they were briefly encaptured they regained their freedom. The found a way to again enjoy the beauty of life. “No harm ever touched them once they cut loose,” this statement just shows the meaning of the poem. That everyone makes their own luck in life and they find the good and the bad sometimes anyway the can. “Where do their mountains and moments begin? I stood a long time in sharpening wind.” She stands and thinks about how she can get past her troubles in the the good of her life. The mountains only symbolized the hardships and obstacles that she had to get past. The horses showed her the way to do so and she didn’t even know it. The horses in the snow are the things in life that people strive to be like and Hill Whiteman in this poem presents that it can be way to easy to look past some of the simplest things in life. Things that can change the way that you live or the way that you go about trying to solve something. That is what this poem is about. It is about Hill Whiteman and everyone else finding the way to get past hardship and obstacles in order to enjoy the beauties of life. |