The Gardener 9: When I Go Alone at Night
The Gardener 9: When I Go Alone at Night - meaning Summary
Private Desire Made Visible
The poem depicts a speaker’s private experience of longing and shame during nocturnal meetings with a lover. External surroundings fall silent or darken, while the speaker’s own body — anklets, heart, and a jewel at the breast — becomes conspicuously loud or luminous. The central tension is the speaker’s attempt to conceal ardor and the recurrent failure to do so, turning inward emotion into unavoidable outward signals.
Read Complete AnalysesWhen I go alone at night to my love-tryst, birds do not sing, the wind does not stir, the houses on both sides of the street stand silent. It is my own anklets that grow loud at every step and I am ashamed. When I sit on my balcony and listen for his footsteps, leaves do not rustle on the trees, and the water is still in the river like the sword on the knees of a sentry fallen asleep. It is my own heart that beats wildly -- I do not know how to quiet it. When my love comes and sits by my side, when my body trembles and my eyelids droop, the night darkens, the wind blows out the lamp, and the clouds draw veils over the stars. It is the jewel at my own breast that shines and gives light. I do not know how to hide it.
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