Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Natural History" by Robert Penn Warren presents a surreal and haunting tableau involving an "old father" and "mother" who engage in strange behaviors that blur the line between life and death. The poem is laden with rich, complex imagery that explores themes of memory, mortality, and the absurdity of existence.

The poem opens with an image of the "naked old father" dancing in the rain, a scene that evokes both vulnerability and a kind of primal joy. His nakedness suggests a return to a state of innocence or the stripping away of social conventions. The rain, often a symbol of cleansing or renewal, falls sparsely, yet the father cannot "dodge all the drops," implying an inevitable confrontation with the elements or the realities of life. He is "singing a song," but the language is "strange" to the speaker, indicating a disconnect or an alienation from the father's experience. This foreignness could symbolize the gap between generations or the mystery that surrounds the understanding of life and death.

The mother, in contrast to the father, is engaged in a different activity. She is "counting her money like mad," an act done in the sunshine, suggesting a fixation on something material or tangible. Her money is described as "her golden memories of love," implying that what she is counting is not physical currency but the treasured moments of her past. This act of counting memories suggests an obsession with the past, a clinging to what was once valuable or meaningful. The "astronomical" sum could indicate the immeasurable worth of these memories, but it also suggests a manic, perhaps futile, effort to hold onto them. The comparison of her breath to "bruised violets" and her smile to "daffodils reflected in a brook" gives a delicate, almost fragile quality to her actions, hinting at the transient nature of life and the beauty that exists within it.

The father's song, the poem tells us, is about understanding, but the language barrier signifies that this understanding is beyond the speaker's grasp. This points to the father's perhaps newly gained insight into life, death, or existence—something profound that cannot be easily communicated or understood by others. This newfound understanding is so powerful that it has the ability to stop "clocks all over the continent," suggesting a suspension of time or a moment of existential significance. The cessation of time could symbolize the timelessness of death or the moment when one gains a profound, life-altering realization.

The imagery of all flights being "canceled out of Kennedy" adds to the surreal and disorienting atmosphere. Airports and flights often symbolize transitions, movement, or progress, and their cancellation implies a stasis or an interruption in the normal flow of life. This may reflect the disruption caused by the father's and mother's actions or states of being, as if their existence or behavior has halted the world’s regular operations.

The speaker feels compelled to "summon the police" to put the father and mother "under surveillance." This reflects society's discomfort with what does not conform to its norms, particularly with those who seem to exist outside the boundaries of life and death. The poem concludes with the line, "They must learn to stay in their graves. That’s what graves are for," a stark and somewhat grim assertion that underlines society's insistence on order and the containment of death within designated spaces. The father and mother, in their refusal to stay "in their graves," challenge the boundaries between life and death, and their behavior disturbs the speaker’s sense of normalcy and control.

"Natural History" thus presents a surreal, almost nightmarish vision of life, death, and memory. The father and mother's actions evoke a sense of the absurd, highlighting the human struggle to find meaning or maintain order in the face of the inexplicable. The poem grapples with the tension between the desire for understanding and the recognition of the inherent strangeness of existence. It leaves the reader with an unsettling awareness of the delicate balance between life and death, sanity and madness, and the thin veil that separates our daily reality from the unknown.

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