Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Naomi Shihab Nye’s "The Turtle Shrine Near Chittagong" is a meditation on faith, disillusionment, and the yearning for signs of acknowledgment in a world that often remains indifferent. Through the layered imagery of feeding turtles, making offerings, and struggling in human relationships, the poem explores the tension between belief and skepticism, between the desire for affirmation and the reality of uncertainty. The speaker’s journey—both physical and emotional—unfolds as a search for meaning, where rituals of faith, love, and even survival become intertwined with unfulfilled expectations.

The poem opens with an image of turtles surfacing from dark water: "Humps of shell emerge from dark water. / Believers toss hunks of bread, / hoping the fat reptilian heads / will loom forth from the murk / and eat." This ritual suggests an act of faith—offering sustenance in hopes of receiving a response. The turtles, acting as divine intermediaries or symbols of a listening force, are expected to rise, to acknowledge those who seek signs. The moment of feeding is not just about nourishment; it carries the weight of prayer. Nye captures this in the understated conclusion to the scene: "Meaning: you have been / heard." The directness of this statement underscores the human need for recognition, for reassurance that our actions and pleas matter.

Yet, the speaker’s reaction contrasts with the believers’ hope: "I stood, breathing the stench of mud / and rotten dough, and could not feel / encouraged." Here, the sensory details—"stench of mud," "rotten dough"—introduce discomfort and skepticism. Instead of finding reassurance, the speaker perceives decay, stagnation. The inability to "feel encouraged" signals a growing detachment from the faith that surrounds her. This skepticism continues as she ascends: "Climbed the pilgrim hill / where prayers in tissue radiant tubes / were looped to a tree." The "tissue radiant tubes" suggest fragility, a delicate yet hopeful offering. For a moment, she experiences "a hope washed over me / small as the hope of stumbling feet," but this hope is fleeting. The phrase "did not hold long enough / to get me down" suggests an unfulfilled longing—something briefly felt but not sustained.

The poem then shifts back to the present, to the bustling reality of the world beyond the shrine: "Rickshas crowded the field, / announced by tinny bells." This return to everyday life, with its mechanical noise and movement, interrupts the spiritual moment. The presence of the friend beside her, who continues to cast bread into the water, provides another contrast: "The friend beside me, whose bread / floated and bobbed, / grew grim." His grimness implies disappointment, perhaps at the turtles' failure to respond. The speaker, however, offers an explanation that is both practical and dismissive: "They’re full, I told him. / But they always eat mine." This exchange subtly suggests that faith, or the expectation of a response, is inconsistent—some receive answers, others do not. The speaker’s statement, with its ironic certainty, highlights the randomness of acknowledgment, whether from divine forces or from life itself.

The poem then takes an abrupt, deeply personal turn: "That night I told the man I love most / he came from hell. It was also / his birthday." The suddenness of this confession shocks, contrasting sharply with the previous contemplation of faith. The harshness of "he came from hell" signals a rupture, a moment of raw, unresolved emotion. The juxtaposition of this cruelty with the fact that it was his birthday intensifies the dissonance—love and anger, celebration and bitterness, all colliding in a single moment.

The setting shifts again, this time to a restaurant: "We gulped lobster / over a white tablecloth in a country / where waves erase whole villages, annually, / and don’t even make our front page." This line expands the poem’s scope to include global disparity—privilege and destruction existing side by side. The mention of "waves [that] erase whole villages" underscores the vastness of suffering, the way tragedies unfold unnoticed by those who are not directly affected. The white tablecloth becomes a symbol of detachment, of the ability to consume, to celebrate, even in the face of unacknowledged devastation.

The imagery of waiting and uncertainty continues: "Waiters forded the lulling currents / of heat." The choice of "forded" evokes the crossing of a river, reinforcing the ongoing theme of blurred boundaries—between land and water, faith and doubt, love and estrangement. The speaker’s sense of discomfort lingers: "Later, my mosquito net / had holes." This small detail—an object meant to protect failing in its function—mirrors the poem’s broader meditation on faith and assurance. The net is supposed to keep out discomfort, just as prayer is supposed to offer comfort, just as love is supposed to provide stability. Yet, like the net, these things often fail.

The final lines return to the imagery of offering and longing: "All night, I was pitching something, / crumbs or crusts, into that bottomless pool / where the spaces between our worlds take root." The "bottomless pool" echoes the earlier turtle shrine, suggesting that whether in faith or in relationships, the speaker continues to cast something outward, searching for acknowledgment, connection, meaning. The phrase "the spaces between our worlds" captures the fundamental distance—between belief and doubt, between two lovers, between privilege and suffering. There is an ongoing effort to bridge these gaps, but no certainty of success.

The poem’s final plea is for a sign: "He would forgive me tomorrow. / But I wanted a mouth to rise up / from the dark, a hand, / any declarable body part, to swallow / or say, This is water, that is land." The idea that "He would forgive me tomorrow" suggests that human relationships, unlike faith, allow for repair. However, the deeper need expressed here is for something solid, for clarity in the murk of uncertainty. The speaker longs for an undeniable response—"a mouth to rise up," "a hand,"—something tangible, something that confirms reality, that defines the boundaries of experience. The phrase "This is water, that is land." becomes a metaphor for certainty itself—the need for clear distinctions in a world where faith, love, and understanding often feel amorphous and unstable.

"The Turtle Shrine Near Chittagong" is a profound reflection on belief, longing, and the human need for affirmation. Through the imagery of a sacred ritual, a fractured relationship, and an indifferent world, Naomi Shihab Nye crafts a meditation on the ways we search for recognition—whether from gods, from loved ones, or from life itself. The poem suggests that while forgiveness may come, and while life may continue, the deepest yearning remains: for a sign that assures us we are seen, that we are heard, that the divisions between us are not insurmountable.

Copyright (c) 2025 PoetryExplorer

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...