Poem Analysis: The Moon and the Yew Tree, By Jacinta Magoncia
This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.
The writer feels cold and distant.
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The tree makes her feel sad, nowhere near as life-giving as it should be.
The grasses unload their griefs at my feet as if I were God,
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.
Nature hugs her physical body perfectly as if they were one being but also hurting her.
Fumy spiritous mists inhabit this place
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.
The mists move like it is about to do a mischievous act towards the writer, trapping her in with the foggy air, lost with no direction. Headstones tell us that she lives close to a graveyard.
The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right, White as a knuckle and terribly upset. The moon is usually associated with femininity. Sounds like she has a relationship with the moon and it is going downhill. It could be a family member or friend.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here. Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky – Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection. At the end, they soberly bong out their names.
The moon (person) drags the sea after it like a dark crime (a wave of tears fall upon their face, from death and a tragic situation) Eight people call out the name of the deceased, breathing life for the soul to a new chapter.
The yew tree points up. It has a Gothic shape. The eyes lift after it and find the moon. The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary. Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls. How I would like to believe in tenderness – The face of the effigy, gentled by candles, Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.
The yew tree knows and acknowledges the moon. The moon is the writer’s mother, in the second stanza Sylvia says “The moon is no door”, her mother does not provide welcoming arms to her. Her mother is someone she fears, a sinful person. Bats symbolize rebirth and letting go, owls symbolize death. They are both animals of the night. The mom only shares a black and white vision in her relationship with her daughter.
I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering Blue and mystical over the face of the stars. Inside the church, the saints will be all blue, Floating on their delicate feet over cold pews, Their hands and faces stiff with holiness. The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild. And the message of the yew tree is blackness – blackness and silence.
“Fallen a long way” her wings to aim high are gone. This poem gives a melancholic weary vibe, blue means depression, sadness, darkness. In stanza 1, blue is being cold and distant, exactly what the saints give off, their prayers and nothing more. The mother is unaware of how the people feel except her own. Being bald is to shut off all emotions and go wild, anything to distract her from death. The yew tree being black and silent is the person who has died. It could be the mother’s lover. The writer also sees life as unfulling and cold, there is no warmth and comfort from those around her. Even nature is withering away. Turning a blind eye and ears full of static.