Commentary: Planting a Sequoia

Commentary: Planting a Sequoia

Songs are written as an expression of emotions. For those of us who cannot sing, there is poetry.   If there was an exact science to poetry, everyone would be writing it. Yet, as there is no definite formula to writing, only a selected few are gifted with the talent to write a piece of metrical literature. Of those few, Dana Gioia is a member. Of her works, we encounter “Planting a Sequoia”.
From the title, one would instantly assume that the poem recounts the poet’s experience planting a tree. However, after a quick read-through, on could discern that it not only tells of planting a tree but also nurturing and giving life. The title “Planting a Sequoia” connotes a feeling of renewal or rebirth as when one thinks of tree-planting, one usually associates the act with giving life.
After reading it, the poem basically tells a story of hope. It recounts a father’s agony in the loss of his first born but at the same time, the pride that he was conceived to begin with. The poem opens with a very gloomy scene where “Rain blackened the horizon” and “the sky above us stayed the dull gray of an old year coming to an end”, boding a tragedy ahead.   The second stanza talks about the tradition that Sicilian families carry out when a son is born, where a father plants a tree. Until the third stanza, the reader has been led to assume that the speaker has just had a son. However, when the speaker says “But today we kneel… defying the practical custom of our fathers”, the reader then understands that a son has not been borne but instead has passed away. The rest of the poem expresses the speaker’s feelings towards the death of his son. Although he has passed, he rejoices in his short-lived life and, as if the son had lived, will take care of the tree to the best of his ability. The final stanza tells about how the speaker hopes that, even when he and his family die, the tree prevails.
The mood of the poem is that of sadness and somberness. The...