Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Linda Pastan's poem "Snow Showers, A Prothalamion" is a beautifully woven meditation on love, marriage, and the blending of reality and imagination. The poem, framed as a "prothalamion" (a song or poem written in celebration of a marriage), explores the connection between the celestial and the earthly, using the language of the stars and snowflakes to create a metaphorical dialogue about relationships, creativity, and the passage of time.

The poem begins with an intimate scene: "You are teaching my daughter the language of the stars," set in "freezing Wisconsin," where the speaker envisions her daughter and the daughter's partner gazing up at the starry sky. This moment of learning and discovery is depicted as deeply meaningful, with their "faces tilted up as though you were reading, were trying to learn by heart the night's illuminated pages." The image of the sky as a book to be read, with its "illuminated pages," suggests a sense of wonder and reverence for the mysteries of the universe, as well as the intimate bond between the two as they explore these mysteries together.

The speaker imagines her daughter peering through a telescope, "seeing her first close-up of what I still call the heavens." The use of "heavens" evokes a sense of the divine or the mystical, as if the stars are more than just physical objects but symbols of something greater. The comparison to "seeing a man's face (yours) stubbled and cratered, an eyelash length away" adds a personal, almost tender dimension to the celestial imagery. This moment of seeing the stars up close is likened to the intimacy of seeing a lover's face, complete with its imperfections and textures, suggesting that both the vastness of the universe and the closeness of human connection are sources of awe and wonder.

The poem then reflects on the daughter's imaginative nature: "She was a most inventive child. Now she gives the spin of reality to her made-up worlds." This line highlights the daughter's creativity, her ability to blend reality and imagination in a way that makes her fantasies seem real. In contrast, the daughter's partner, described as a "fledgling astronomer," makes "real worlds with their long itineraries of light seem touched with phantasy." The juxtaposition of the daughter's imaginative worlds with the partner's scientific pursuits suggests a harmonious relationship where both reality and imagination are valued and interwoven.

The speaker then shifts to a personal reflection: "I want to tell you both how a moment ago there were snow showers here, though the sun is back now, and the grass remains a frozen, spiky green." The mention of snow showers and the return of the sun introduces a fleeting, almost magical moment where the boundary between the real and the imagined blurs. The "snow showers" are described as if they were "entire galaxies," with "stars or star-shaped flakes" swirling around, creating a scene where "the real and the imagined became one." This merging of opposites—snow and sun, reality and imagination—serves as a metaphor for the speaker's own marriage, which she describes as "a perfect marriage of opposites."

The poem concludes with the speaker looking forward to the future, specifically to the spring: "Come spring, like yours." This line ties the speaker's reflection on her own marriage to the impending marriage of her daughter and her partner. The hope for a "spring" that is like the speaker's own marriage suggests a wish for their union to be as harmonious, balanced, and enduring as the speaker's has been.

"Snow Showers, A Prothalamion" is a deeply reflective and evocative poem that uses the imagery of stars, snowflakes, and the natural world to explore the themes of love, marriage, and the blending of reality and imagination. Through her rich and layered imagery, Pastan captures the beauty of both the physical and emotional landscapes, celebrating the connections that bind people together and the ways in which those connections are reflected in the world around them. The poem serves as both a celebration of an impending marriage and a meditation on the enduring nature of love, creativity, and the mysterious interplay between the real and the imagined.

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