The poem was written is six paragraphs of which only two were long. The first four paragraphs are about MacCaig building up to the visit t his wife and what he is thinking. In paragraph three he says,
“I will not feel, “ by this he means he doesn’t want to show his emotions in front of his wife. I think that the poem was divided into two halves, the shorter first four paragraphs being one half and they longer two paragraphs being the second half. In the second half, MacCaig writes about the visit itself. I think he does this to get an equal balance of importance, too gradually lead us up to his heartache.
MacCaig uses a lot of unusual ideas in his poem. When he is describing walking into the hospital he writes this,
“The hospital smell
combs my nostrils,” by this he is telling us that the hospital smells so clean, that his nostrils would feel out of place if they hadn’t been combed. It seems as if his mind is set on death as he sees someone on a hospital trolley being trundled into a lift and going up words, he writes,
‘What seems a corpse
is trundled into am lift and vanishes
heavenward,” to me this signifies that he is seeing a negative in everything. I was confused by the way he described a nurses movement at first as he says,
“Nurses walk lightly, swiftly,
here and up and down and there,” and by this he means that a nurse sets to go somewhere and can end up somewhere completely different because of demanding patients or unexpected urgencies. I admire the poet’s style of writing because it is very moving. By this I mean I can feel empathy towards him throughout the poem.
The poem also contained many metaphors that were very effective. These metaphors were in verse five, when he is in the hospital by his wife’s beside. Firstly he says,
“a white cave of forgetfulness,” by this he means that the sheets on her bed are white and contrasting to the black all around her. She was on medicine and maybe that is the reason she was full of forgetfulness. The second describes the frailty of her hands,
“a withered hand trembles on its stalk,” and this describes the frail hand shaking, with a drip attached. I think that this is effective because of the way it says that the hand is withering away comparing it to the stalk of a flower. Next, he writes,
“into an arm…a glass fang is fixed,” which is saying the drip is sucking all of her blood out like a vampire. The poet finishes off the verse with a meaningful sentence,
“the distance of pain that neither she nor I can cross,” by this the writer is saying that in no way can he even try and think what his Wife is feeling and there is also no way that his Wife can sense what he is going through.
In the last paragraph, MacCaig tries to cross this barrier of pain. He does this by writing the last verse in his wife’s perspective. He uses sounds that his wife hears like,
“in the round swimming waves of a bell,” and he also writes about what she is seeing through her eyes,
“and dizzily goes off, growing fainter,” and this shows him trying to break this barrier that he said he couldn’t break.
As the poems finishes there are two symbolic sentences said. The first one which is,
“books that will never be read,” means that if you are in hospital for a long time then you would expect books. However, if you have been telling someone that they are going to get better and will be out of hospital soon, then books shouldn’t be an option as they might get the impression they are here to stay. Also, if the book is not going to be read then that also indicates that they are going to die. The second area of symbolism is,
“fruitless fruits,” and this symbolises that fruit that may be given to someone in hospital, and if it is fruitless it is also lifeless, as fruits are good for you.
I conclude that the poet uses good techniques throughout by use of metaphors and symbolism. Throughout the poem he makes me feel empathetic towards him. Although the poem proved confusing at times with his unusual ideas, I still really enjoyed it and I really felt the power of the last two words, which were,
“Fruitless fruits.”