ipl-logo

My Father Perceived As A Vision Of St. Francis Poem Analysis

1573 Words7 Pages

Ethan Molzahn Patrick Moran English 102 May 4, 2023 My Father Perceived as a Vision of St. Francis: Poetry Analysis Poetry is complex, beautiful, and will always have some kind of story or meaning behind it, no matter what. My Father Perceived as a Vision of St. Francis by Paula Meehan highlights the moments where a daughter returns back to her old home,where she reminisces over the rooms and objects inside and outside that have been remodeled throughout the years while she was gone. As she takes her time walking and looking around her old house, the feeling of regret and mourning settles in. Coming back and seeing something completely different, especially a home which can instill a sense of complete sadness if you left it behind …show more content…

Early on, she hears him “rake the ash from the grate, plug in the kettle, hum a snatch of s tune”. (Meehan, Lines 11-12) These are examples of sight and sound imagery as well that tie together very smoothly, as she sees her father in the early morning, ready to start his day with his natural routine. She sees him shortly after, unlock the back door and step out into the garden of frost which had whitened the entire estate. In addition to this, the poem takes this sort of shift into autumn imagery where they go from inside to outside, revealing the land and the garden as snowy. Meehan then states, “He was older than I had reckoned, his hair completely silver, and for the first time I saw the stoop of his shoulder, saw his legs were stiff”. (Meehan Lines 20-21) The realization in her eyes of how long she was really gone for had finally set in. She then questions her fathers state and where he stands in life compared to back then before she had left, which brings the poem to a more emotional scene than beforehand. Moving onto the third and final stanza of the poem, it starts to explain the significance of the birds nearby and who her father really represents as a person, which is thought to be St.

Open Document