End of Winter

End of Winter
BY LOUISE GLÜCK

Over the still world, a bird calls
waking solitary among black boughs.

You wanted to be born; I let you be born.
When has my grief ever gotten
in the way of your pleasure?

Plunging ahead
into the dark and light at the same time
eager for sensation

as though you were some new thing, wanting
to express yourselves

all brilliance, all vivacity

never thinking
this would cost you anything,
never imagining the sound of my voice
as anything but part of you—

you won't hear it in the other world,
not clearly again,
not in birdcall or human cry,

not the clear sound, only
persistent echoing
in all sound that means good-bye, good-bye—

the one continuous line
that binds us to each other

I picked this poem because of the title, which probably isn't a good rule to go
by but, I had no idea where to start my search for the perfect poem for this
blog post, as I am, unfortunately no expert on poetry. Winter is, despite how
I may be mocked for it, and despite the "are-you-insane??" looks received
when I say this, my favorite season. Yes, at times the snow can be
cumbersome or the cold can be infuriating but, I think that the general magic
of winter completely makes up for that. You have no idea how badly I want to
go off on a rant about winter and all its wonders and angelic beauty-- the first
snow, cookies, sweaters, fires, etc, etc. I could honestly go on forever about
this topic, but it's completely besides the point and I have a feeling that I'll
want to make a blog post about this at a later date anyway. Moving on... I
picked the poem because I thought it would be about winter. I pictured
stunning imagery of the heartbreak that the author felt when winter and all its
magic disappeared for another year-- exactly how I start to feel towards the
beginning of march. This poem, however, is nothing close to what I had in
mind. Whatsoever. In fact, until I copied and pasted the it into my blog post,
I had completely forgotten the title and hadn't looked at it as a seasonal poem
as I read it.

"never thinking
this would cost you anything,
never imagining the sound of my voice
as anything but part of you—"

This line strikes me as a sort of "you never know what you had till you lost it"
type of idea, which is something definitely echoing in the back of my head
throughout the poem. What the author is trying to get across in this line is the
image of someone or something behaving recklessly, taking for granted "the
sound of my voice"- something that has obviously always been part of their life
and is now being taken away.
This poem is about karma, in a way, about realizing what you have before it's
gone-- it's about the fact that if you're someone who never let anyones grief in
get in the way of the way of your own pleasure, it will catch up to you
eventually. You will lose all you have, live in "the other world" where the only
sound is the persistent echoing of "goodbye, goodbye"-- the one continuous line
that binds you to the past.
The idea of winter or the "end of winter" is a metaphor in this poem. It's
about someones falling from power, crashing and burning. It's about
someone or something as strong and fierce and alive as winter when all
they've done and forgotten about is finally catching up with them. Everyone
has, no doubt, hurt someone without realizing. Everyone, at times takes even
the most precious things for granted. Everyone has "plunged ahead in all
brilliance, all vivacity" without stopping to consider the consequences. This
poem is about someone who does these things far too often- someone who
abuses these privileges that everyone has. This poem shows you what can
happen to anyone, at any time.