The poem's first two stanzas reflect feelings of hopelessness in the speaker's daily routine, and the impossibility of emerging from it. The poem describes the speaker's routine as purposeless and empty: “Lately, I've become accustomed to the way / The ground opens up and envelopes me / Each time I go out to walk the dog”. The speaker goes through his routine getting used to those terrifying feelings that he describes in metaphor. He seems to be afraid, and encloses himself to prevent those upsetting emotions from overtaking him. The second stanza also focuses on a daily recurrence; in this case the speaker finds himself disappointed for counting the same amount of stars each night, and counting the “holes they leave” when it is not possible to see them. His appointment prevents him from realizing he may have been through more good moments than he can recount. The holes the stars leave might reflect the emptiness the speaker experiences when he does not have access to those memories.
The third stanza, contrary to the first two, appears to convey a more hopeful scenario. The tone changes; the speaker shows curiosity, his attention is drawn to something external to his pain. When he says: “And then, last night I tiptoed up / To my daughter's room and heard her / Talking to someone ...”, the speaker’s interest is awaken by a stimulus that is outside of his pain. The poem’s closing lines are:
and when I opened
The door, there was no one there...
Only she on her knees, peeking into
Her own clasped hands
These last lines may be interpreted as the speaker connecting with God. The girl's posture indicates that she is praying. One could think that this action may have provoked the speaker need for recovering his faith, and therefore allowing certain peace to penetrate his despair.
Baraka transmits emotional intensity along the poem very effectively through the usage of metaphors, choice of words and imagery. When in the beginning he seems to compare “... the broad silly music the wind / Makes when [he] run[s] for a bus...” to the speaker's breathlessness, one might associate those words with the speaker having a hard time breathing due to his existential struggle. Baraka's use of metaphors intensifies the emotions he wants to convey, and invites the reader to identify emotionally with the speaker. The poem's structure encourages the reader the pay closer attention to those lines that stand by themselves, such as: “Things have come to that”, and “Her own clasped hands”. Even though the reader may not know their meaning at first, their isolation from the previous and next stanzas draws one's eyes to them. The writer also uses vivid images to reach the reader. One particularly powerful image is the scene of the speaker's looking into his daughter's room; the action is doubled in his daughter's “peeking into her own hands.” Not only is this image the climax of the poem, but can also be interpreted as a symbol of continuity. The mirrored action conveys a sense of infinity that could be connected to the speaker's renewed faith in God.
Baraka’s portray of the speaker as a man who struggles to overcome his despair can be seen from Rilke’s point of view. Baraka's reference to the speaker's breathlessness depicts a person that does not have the strength to navigate through his painful emotions. The speaker's state may be characterized, following Rilke’s quote, as a “moment of tension”. His emotions are separated from himself; he is deaf to them. In the third stanza, as suppose to the first two, the speaker is more open to awaken to his anguish, or in Rilke's words, “... [his] astonished emotions living”. His realization of another universe opening through his daughter’s act of praying is the key to his desolation.
Considering the emotions the speaker goes throughout the poem, the poetic devices used by Baraka and Rilke's reflection on sadness, one may conclude that despite his struggle, the speaker is able to relate to his daughter’s little universe to canalize some of his pain. Baraka uses various techniques to effectively create a poem that allows the reader to explore its intricacies by interpreting the poem’s intentions, relating them to his experience.