In the next stanza the poet immediately takes us to the time after her mother's death when she opens the box and finds herself face to face with an embodiment of her mother in the index cards. She is surprised, but extremely grateful for the way in which her mother had 'rendered' herself onto the pieces of paper in every way she could anticipate in order to help her young daughter deal with life without a mother. Here the reader is taken back to the apt comparison of her mother's concentration to that of a squirrel, because the squirrel too works extremely hard to collect and store nuts for the 'hard winters' so that she and her children can survive them. The poet's mother is so concious of her child's needs that knowing she would not be there for much longer, she found a way to guide and support her child even from her grave. This makes the reader marvel at how mothers have that innate ability to know exactly what their children require and the devotion with which they work for their child's benefit and comfort.
The poet goes on to express just how much she relied on those cards to help her deal with life. The cards are personified as the poet tells the reader about how they 'looked after' her and how she'd shuffle them to almost hear her mother speak. This once again shows the young age and vulnerability of the poet as she is desperately holding on to anything that will give her some remembrance of her mother and from which she can
receive some sort of comfort or counsel. To the poet it felt like everything she needed,
the solution to all of life's problems could be found in that box and so it became her world. Here, the reader wonders whether the 'box-shaped world' which the poet talks about could possibly be a reference to the how people believed that the world was flat until they went and explored it for themselves, as at the time they too could not think 'out of the box'. However, in this stanza the reader also notices the beginning of the poet's doubt in the omniscience of her mother's index cards. When the poet says 'or was I playing safe?' the reader realises that the poet now sees that there is more to life than what she can find in that box. In these first three stanzas the poet clearly conveys her lack of independence and self-confidence and also her vulnerability.
In the fourth stanza we see that the tone of the poem has started to change. As the narrator grows and her mind develops, the cards seem to 'shrink'. They no longer hold the answers to all of life's questions and the poet finds herself answering a lot of these herself. Gradually her insecurities begin to fade. Instead of blindly following her mothers views, she begins to use her own and she as she finds the strength to loosen from her mother's 'urgent dogmatism'. She begins to fill in the blanks which her mother left on the cards from her own experiences. Now the poet finds herself wondering whether or not her mother had left these blanks on purpose. Had she merely put in some key words, in order to make her daughter think about these things for herself? The reader too begins to feel that the poet's mother, after supporting her for some time had deliberately left those blanks in order to enable her child to stand on her own two feet and break free of the bonds of dependence. Once again the reader is awed at how sensitive a mother is to her child's needs and how well she knows every nuance of her child's character.
In the final stanza we see how the tone of the poem changes completely. The poet now speaks in clear, well-defined sentences which is a sure sign of maturity. The poet is finally confident enough to live without the cards. When she tips them into the fire it is almost as if she is purging herself of her earlier dependence and starting off afresh as a person who is self-confident and capable of making her own decisions, who can face anything life throws at her and thereby make her own memories and diaries of thoughts and advice.
This achievement of maturity by the poet is a beautiful way to end the poem. Every mother's dream is to see her child self-sufficient and successful. By writing the cards, the poet's mother wanted to give her some initial guidance, push her in the right direction and then leave her to learn from her own experiences. Undoubtedly, the poet reached this stage at the end of the poem which leaves the reader completely content with small smile on his/her face.