Grieving in Amber by Eavan Boland :: essays research papers

Eavan Boland’s poem â€Å"Amber† was published in the Atlantic Monthly in December of 2005. This poem starts off sad, talking about a death of a friend and how grieving seemed to last forever. Boland shows us this through lines one through five. It then goes on saying that if you think of all the good memories that the grieving process will pass and you can be happy when thinking about the lost friend. Boland’s poem â€Å"Amber† is showing us that grieving shouldn’t last forever and that memories can take away the horrible feelings and bring happiness when thinking about a lost loved one. In the first five lines Boland presents the death of a friend and the writer is grieving â€Å"through seasons and centuries† (line 4), or in other words they are having a hard time getting over the grieving process. She then changes the mood by saying â€Å"On this fine September afternoon† (6). By putting the word â€Å"fine† in she is showing us that grieving is over. She starts talking about an ornament of amber that she is holding and that her friend gave this to her. By saying this she means that her friend gave her all of these memories and she is â€Å"holding† them, or keeping them in her memory. This ornament is the symbol of the memories the writer has of her lost friend. Then the writer is explaining that she has only memories because â€Å"The dead cannot see the living† (11) and vise versa. Boland then brings three images of seeds, leaves and feathers to our minds to present them as memories of a lost friend. In the middle of the poem Boland describes these â€Å"memories† by saying â€Å"as it fell and fell,† (15 and 16). By using â€Å"it† this shows that all of these memories are clumped together as one which makes them stronger. After this she goes on by saying â€Å"which now in a sunny atmosphere seem as alive as they ever were† (17 and 18). This is saying that the memories now bring bright and happy feelings and they seem alive because the memories are so strong that they seem as if they are real. When the writer refers to a Baltic honey this is referring back to the ornament of amber and how she was holding it in her hand, as if memories could be held. She then goes on to tell us a little about the friendship.