Anlysis of Looking Trough the Pane

Looking Through the Pane

By Edith Tiempo

At night over a bridge an old man pauses,

Below him the tide of the river crashes;

His steps steadied only by a cane,

He would measure inches on the bamboo span.

At night he taps two poles across a flooded river.

Leaning his feet on the echo of each hollow answer.

Sudden starlight cannot quicken him

As his cane searches a rhythm

In the slow black fields of cogon grass.

The startled python watches him pass,

It hisses no opposition,

No sly blade here, no bludgeon

Only the steps, stumbling and serene,

Only the questing tapping of the cane.

A rustle parts the watchful grass,

Glinting eyes slash

Into the man’s eyes; nothing there,

A crumbled burrow, an empty lair –

The python uncoils and lets him pass.

The old man goes home to a secret house

Where the drawn blinds expel the light,

Black panes confine, by either side a wall,

He sees no light and therefore cannot fall.

Analysis 

First Stanza

            The poem starts with a prepositional phrase (“At night over a bridge”), followed by a noun (“an old man”), and ended with a predicate (“pauses”). In this stanza, we can actually observe an irony between the first line and the second line. The author mentions “bridge”, but also mentions “river”. Words like “cane”, “night”, “taps” and “echo” give hint to readers that the author is referring to a blind persona.  Edith uses “night” to symbolize darkness, the only thing a blind could ever see. The /st/ sound in the third line found in words: steps; steadied, implies the sound that a blind makes as he walks. The author uses the words “echo” and “hollow “since a blind man depends only to the rhythm or sound that his cane would give him when he walks to his destination without knowing whether this gives him the right answer or the hollow one.

Second Stanza

            “Starlight” is used in this stanza, opposite to what the author uses in the first stanza which is “night”. “Sudden starlight cannot quicken him”, literally this would mean that a sudden brightness will not cause a blind to increase his speed of walking since he sees no light. A sudden shift of setting is observed in the third line. The author mentions “fields of cogon grass”, meaning, the persona already reaches another place/level while he is having his journey in life. “The startled python watches him pass/It hisses no opposition”, this line might probably imply to trials: that one encounters; never expects to experience. Edith uses “python” probably because he knows that this fits to trials and failures that one might encounter in the process.

Third Stanza

            “A rustle parts the watchful grass, /Glinting eyes slash.” This line might mean that in life, there are those “watchful grasses”, people with judgmental eyes, who seem to put us down, criticize and judge us as persons. For them, we are only dirt in the society. “Into the man’s eyes; nothing there/A crumbled burrow, an empty lair­­­­­­­­--/ The python uncoils and lets him pass”, this would mean that no matter how .people criticize or judge us, if we would only ignore those  judgments, then time will come that they will uncoil and will let us pass. I like the idea of the author of using “python” to represent people having judgmental eyes, considering that a python is a dangerous constricting snake.

Fourth Stanza

            Literally, a blind refers to someone who cannot see light or sees nothing but darkness. In this poem, the author is not just simply referring to one who only sees darkness but to a person who encounters a lot of bad judgments from people around him and prefers to ignore everything. This is proven in the last stanza: “The old man goes home to a secret house, where the drawn blinds expel the light/Black panes confine, by either side a wall, /He sees no light and therefore cannot fall”. He simply goes to his hiding place where he is free from judgments.