Linda Pastan’s poem, “Traveling Light”, functions like a swinging pendulum moving between certainty and uncertainty. Despite the speaker’s careful preparations for a trip the weather could change everything.
A Narrative in the Moment
The piece consists of four unrhymed cinquains. The narrative begins and ends at the same point in time: the speaker is “leaving […] / for a handful of days” (lines 1-2). The speaker is addressing someone referred to only as “you”. It seems safe to assume that the “you” is the speaker’s significant other. The concept of leaving someone behind on a trip is straightforward, ubiquitous, and stirring. The subject matter draws the reader in for a moment that stays with the reader “forever” (line 4).
Poetic Slideshow
Each instant in the poem is captured like a snapshot. The poem is a series of images: “the way the door closes”, the “suitcase” packed for “an eternity”, the note with the “hotel number”, the “instructions / about the dog / and heating dinner” (lines 5, 7, 11, 12-14). The reader can almost hear the shutter sound of the speaker’s camera. The speaker glides between images creating a slideshow in the mind of the reader. The soundtrack for the slideshow is driven by the ambivalent tone of the speaker who refuses to “be gone forever” while simultaneously investing itself in “an eternity” (lines 4, 9). Since the speaker is so refreshingly unsure and driven by self-doubt the poem’s music becomes incidental and driven by the readers who “have minds / of their own” (lines 19-20). Thus, readers are forced to listen carefully to themselves.
Poetic Devices Piecing Together Doubt
Juxtaposing enjambment and simile lines 14 and 15 pull the reader out of the slideshow and set them down in front of a climate map that could be compared to a phrenology chart. The map portends “switchblades / of wind and ice” that could cut the speaker’s trip short with disaster (lines 17-18). But whether the weather will actually slash the future into pieces is as unsure as the insecure speaker. The poem is playing with relativity in an equation that balances humanity and reality. The equation remains unsolved.
Knowing Nothing is Certain
Nothing is certain, everything changes, and “lives have minds / of their own” (line 20). Linda Pastan captures “leaving” in a way that stays with readers long after they have left the poem. The poem plainly speaks to anyone who knows that no matter how much one prepares for the future it has not been written. Moreover, even if one has all the answers the poem may still show them that more answers only lead to more questions.
Sources:
- Pastan, Linda. "Traveling Light." Traveling Light: Poems. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2011. Print.
Matthew Birdsall - Matt is a reader, writer, teacher, lover, and liver, not necessarily in that order. He is eager to read your comments and hopes you enjoy ...
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