253. Offspring

               I tried to tell her:
                              This way the twig is bent.
                              Born of my trunk and strengthened by my roots,
                              you must stretch newgrown branches
                              closer to the sun
                              that I can reach.

               I wanted to say:
                              Extend my self to that far atmosphere
                              only my dream allow.

               But the twig broke,
               and yesterday I saw her
               walking down an unfamiliar street,
                              feet confident
                              face slanted upward toward a threatening sky,
               and
                              she was smiling
                              and she was
                              her very free,
                              her very individual,
                              unpliable
                              own.

-The speaker of the poem could be the poet, however, in any case, I believe it to be a mother. It could really be either parent, a mother or a father, but I assumed it to be a mother. Due to the poem's title I reached my conclusion. There is no rhyme to the poem however I think it works in its favor. The poem is, in essence, about parents letting go of their children. By not including any rhyme scheme, as well as breaking up the stanzas into unregulated sections the poem is wholly unpredictable; this may reflect the mother's confusion and anxiety as she chooses to let her daughter go and become her own person.

-The symbol of the tree is used as a representation of the mother's life, and well as the life she has built up for her daughter. Trees are a sign of life in general, part of a symbiotic circle that keeps us alive, therefore it is only fitting that the speaker compares life to a tree. She relates herself to this tree, the foundation of her daughter's life. "Her roots" are like her own morals and beliefs that she has instilled in her daughter.

There is also a break in the poem and this shows us, as readers, a shift in the piece. In line 10, the third stanza, the speaker is no longer recollecting what she said to her daughter and what she wanted to say; stanzas three and four rather become the change she sees in her daughter. In the first two stanzas the speaker is telling her daughter she is a branch, only bending in another direction; a branch that is still attached to the giant tree. However, in line 10 "the twig broke". This is the daughter's transition into maturity. The diction used after this break is interesting. Walking down an "unfamiliar street" is representative of the daughter walking down a path that is different from her mother's, her own display of individualism. Also "her face slanted upward toward a threatening sky" Threatening is a way to say that the daughter is no longer under her mother's protection and is now out on the world on her own and must face its troubles on her own as well.

-I enjoyed the poem because not only was it about the coming of age for a young woman, but also the transition in a mother. However I liked how the poem concluded with the statement that, even though the daughter is "walking down an unfamiliar street" with her "face slanted upward toward a threatening sky... she was smiling and she was her very free, her very individual, unpliable own." I think that this really showed both the daughter and the mother's transformation. The daughter has left her mother's nest to become an individual; and the mother in return can look at her daughter and see her for the individual she has become, however still maintain her motherly instincts.