The phrase ‘I tried to do all the essentials on one trip’ describes shopping as a metaphor for life, as we can’t get everything right in one lifetime. She uses food to describe the most important function which she thinks she now has – to provide for her family.
The ‘blond boy’ in the fourth stanza gives a tremendous sense of youth, child-like with fewer burdens. She displays naivety that she once believed these promises.
The potent relationship between women, weight, and how women see themselves is touched upon in the fifth stanza. Standing on the scales represents an awful reality and you can’t get away from it. Women are told how they should look and what weight they should be, and if they don’t live up to it, then they feel like a failure. The ‘creamy ladies’ are the mannequins, which can permanently stay the same, contrasting with her, as life brings a continual inevitable series of changes.
She describes herself ‘fumbling’ with a ‘hot flush’, which is typical of the menopause, and brings her a sense of embarrassment. The lack of compassion in the shop girl’s face is typical of youths. The girl cannot understand what she’s going through.
‘It did happen’ is the recognition of the past, that at one time she was happy.
The last stanza is the ultimate recognition for her. She bumps into a mirror and stares at ‘an anxious, dowdy matron’ which is the person she has now become. She says ‘I’m sorry sorry sorry’ because she had thought she was someone else, and that the future would be better for her, but it’s not.
By the end of the poem, the woman has recognised what she has become and the distance she’s travelled between what she was told and what she has and has not achieved.
“Moments of Grace” is a reflective poem, where she is looking back at her life. The poem is rooted on a journey, in which the past makes her recognise that she’s happy in the present.
The poem is told through a series of sustained recollections and dreams of the past and what was. She describes a ‘wordless’ state, which can be linked to the fourth stanza, in which she claims that actions, such as kissing the back of the neck, are worth more than words like I love you. ‘Grace’ comes from God in Heaven, and so ‘Moments of grace’ are described as beautiful moments which bring her relaxation.
In the second stanza the ‘palms’ provide zeugma, and a biblical illusion of paradise. The palms contain the names of the people she’s writing about. ‘Hoping I will not feel me breathing too close across time’ suggests that her memories are so delicate that even her thoughts might break them.
‘The chimes of mothers calling in children at dusk’ is the present, which intrudes into her thoughts drawing her out of her reflective state. She describes her past as ‘staggering years’, ‘vanishing scents’ and ‘like a melting balloon’. This hints that the memories of her past are weighing her down, and her memories are floating away. She can remember her thoughts but not all of them, and she feels a ghost in her own memories.
‘Memories caged bird won’t fly’ reveals that age is a barrier to remembering everything. The phrase ‘These days we are adjectives, nouns. In moments of grace we were verbs’ means that now we are limited by the ways people describe us, whereas the verbs of the past offered a more interesting future and the possibility to do anything. ‘A thin skin lies on the language’ means how words can be twisted to mean what you want. Words, actions and verbs offer us possibility and meaning and the potential to do things. ‘Strangers’ like the thin skin on language, can offer either everything or nothing as there is no past or history behind them.
The final stanza is back in the present and it provides a sense of intimacy. The taking off of the watch, and letting a minute ‘unravel’ shows the suspension of time, becoming a moment of grace for her, due to the sense of intimacy. ‘Mild loss opens my lips like No’ suggests that saying No may mean losing something, and Yes may mean opening up to opportunity and potential. However, she is not about to say No, but is preparing for a kiss.
The final line of the poem shows a moment of grace and makes the poem universal. ‘Passing, you kiss the back of my neck. A blessing.’ Due to the spontaneity, this simple act means more to her than actual words and the unexpected is better. The ‘blessing’ suspends the religious metaphor. This becomes a moment of grace, a blessing from God, and a celebration of love.
The poem is made universal because we all want to love and be loved, and for her, the kiss on the back of the neck is a moment of grace, a blessing from God. The poem is structured so that she realises the present. The noun that she becomes is a lover, and so her verb in the past is still her verb now – to love and be loved.
“Recognition” and “Moments of Grace” show contrasting views of the past and the present. In “Recognition” the past is better than the present. She feels she has missed many opportunities in her lifetime and the world of opportunity which she once had has now gone, and she is left to accept her role as a middle-aged, abandoned mother and a provider of the family. In “Moments of Grace” the present is better than the past, in the fact that, although the past held more chances and the possibility for anything, and growing old stifles memories, her present state is one of content and happiness in knowing that the intimacy and love is still alive in her life.
