Commentary Helen Moffett uses a variety of writer’s choices in her poem “Route 62” such as personification, and word choices to describe her sense of awe for the mountains’ air of peacefulness and resilience in the test of time. Interestingly, Route 62 is a tourist route in Little Karoo in South Africa. In “Route 62”, Moffett uses connotations, and word choices to illustrate her sense of awe for the mountains’ peacefulness and resilience. In line 1, “What do mountains dream of”, the verb dream is used to describe that the mountain is dormant, or sleeping. Sleeping has a positive connotation similar to the word peace. Right off the start Moffett lays the foundation for her poem to convey her sense of awe for the mountains’ peacefulness. In …show more content…
This changes the pacing of the poem from a slow and steady pace to a sudden zoom, similar to a roller coaster lift hill. The word “adoleneces” from line 7 influences meaning in line 8. In line 8 “ Blasted entire continents into the sky” in the context of line 7, most likely mean volcanoes. This can be summarized as Earth’s tantrum and chaos. “Locked into peace, immobile, their flanks Not even twitching in the drowsy summer Afternoons.” The remnants of the chaos leads to an peaceful order, or the creation of the mountain, unmoving, and still. The word “drowsy” gives a sense of sleepiness, as if the mountains were sleeping, and dormant. “Now they breathe in time with The slowly passing centuries of geology’s clock, The beat too deep to resonate in our bones. But the mountains hear it in their sleep: Tick, and then the pause: aeons later, tock.” These last four lines gives the reader a sense of eternity that is the mountain. It also conveys the poet’s appreciation of the timeless mountains. Centuries and human lifespans are minute in the eyes of the mountains. The poet again refers the mountains as to be asleep, leading to the