A Life You Might Say You Might Live
by Constance Urdang
(published in 100 Great Poems by Women, edited by Carolyn Kizer,
1995, The Ecco Press)
You might call it a road,
This track that swerves across the dry field,
And you might call this alley a street,
This alley that stumbles downhill between the high walls
And what you might call doorways, these black mouths
That open into caves you might call houses;
And if you turned at the corner
Into a narrower alley, you might still call it
Going home, and when you got to the place
Where it dwindles to a footpath, and you kept on walking
You would finally come to what you might call the threshold
Of a life, of what you might call your life.
Here is a poem that uses repetition on purpose and with purpose, starting in the title and continuing to the last line.
I love how this poem takes the very common idea of life as a trip and gives us details to describe this, and Urdang does it while putting the reader into the poem. She does this by using you, of course, and also by the use of might and if. The use of these words forces us to consider what the poet is saying and wonder, "Would I call life a road?"
I also like how at the end we are given a choice: this could be the threshold of my life or my life. This can be taken so many ways! Does this refer to people who are always putting life off, thinking they will have time later? Is the threshold referring to this life as opposed to heaven? Is Urdang making a point between those who are waiting for their life and those who are making their life?
And movement--there is both actual and metaphoric movement in this poem. This poem takes us along through its place and its life.
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