All of life is portion of a rhythm of birth and metempsychosis. and nature Tells us that with the passing of one life. a new one will bloom. In the verse form “Loneliness. ” Laura Cortes evokes the image of a crop to reflect on how memories make one’s purdah in old age fruitful. The rubric of the verse form introduces the reader to a bleak topic which instantly evokes images of darkness and isolation. Cortes continues these images in the first line of the verse form. “inside a rock house in the mountains. ” ( 1 ) which reinforces the thought of purdah.
The image of a rock house. stripped of heat and life. resonates with solitariness that creeps in when 1 has been left behind by the people he loves. However. in the 2nd line. Cortes uses an image that is contrary to what she ab initio evokes: “there is a alone and sweet smell” ( 2 ) . And we find in this line a point of tenseness in the verse form The adult male in “Loneliness. ” is person who is at the dusk of his life. a point in which his household has gone and all that remains are “ghosts and memories” ( 3 ) and “the cut apples. in boxes” ( 4 ) .
The life of a adult male in this province is one that is lived in the purdah of memories. However. it is memories which make the man’s life meaningful. In the verse form. he continues to be given the apple trees “he planted…forty summers ago” ( 6 ) because they hold the memory of his household. images of “…wonderful harvests/ with 40 custodies assisting and carrying/with plentifulness and beautiful apples/with the immature and united household smiling” ( 9-12 ) . It is an image that “he would ne’er leave…alone” ( 8 ) because through this memory he finds company. and the rock house becomes inhabitable and solitude bearable.
The verse form Tells of the power of memory to attach to us towards the terminal of our lives when everything that we have known has grown “tired and old” ( 14 ) . It is this authority which gives the adult male hope in the face of his old age. Cortes tells us that solitariness environments old age. the sort that looms like darkness. But at the same clip. she suggests that there is hope. non for the resurgence of past energy or the return of those who have gone. but for significance.
This significance comes from the confidence that “the following harvest” ( 16 ) will get. certifying to the fact that life goes through a rhythm. Cortes suggests in this line that life will go on in memory. and every bit long as the “stone house in the mountains” and the apple trees of “forty summers ago” remain. the memory—and the life it contains—will endure. The images of “stone” and “old trees” take a different significance towards the terminal of verse form because these images now evoke the endurance of memory.
It is clear that Cortes analogues the crop of apples with the crop of life. Both have definite beginnings and terminations. and both are renewed. Seasons replenish the crop as memory revives the yesteryear. This is the beginning of hope the adult male holds on to. In “Loneliness. ” the talker negotiations of a man’s solitariness. one that is in private healed by memories. Although there is nil explicit in the verse form which tells of the relationship of the talker to the adult male. it may be said that the extent of solitariness depicted in the verse form can merely be felt and experienced personally.
Therefore. despite the impersonal tone which the talker takes on in the verse form. it is non difficult to associate him to the adult male he talks about to be the old adult male himself. Loneliness is a private affair which can non be entirely shared. and the fact that we will necessarily confront the terminal of our lives entirely. makes old age a clip of hopelessness. In Cortes’ verse form. nevertheless. she refuses to accept this thought by pulling on the power of memory to regenerate hope that our life may be beyond decease.
