I Hunt for a Sign of You
I Hunt for a Sign of You - meaning Summary
Searching for a Single Beloved
The poem describes a speaker searching for traces of a single beloved among many women, repeatedly mistaking features for hers and then realizing they are not. It emphasizes her unique, indivisible presence — precise details like nails, hair, and rhythms mark her apart. The speaker’s pursuit becomes a fluid, transporting movement; metaphors of rivers and a feminine sea suggest longing, continual motion, and a sense of loving toward an unattainable unity.
Read Complete AnalysesI hunt for a sign of you in all the others, In the rapid undulant river of women, Braids, shyly sinking eyes, Light step that slices, sailing through the foam. Suddenly I think I can make out your nails, Oblong, quick, nieces of a cherry: Then it's your hair that passes by, and I think I see your image, a bonfire, burning in the water. I searched, but no one else had your rhythms, Your light, the shady day you brought from the forest; Nobody had your tiny ears. You are whole, exact, and everything you are is one, And so I go along, with you I float along, loving A wide Mississippi toward a feminine sea.
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