Analysis of At the River's End
High up on towering snowcapped peaks
on the Western rim of Two Gorges range,
streams of water cascade and fall in ribbons
curving and carving a winding path down
into convergence on the sunken valley floor.
The rugged treelined bank of the river
adorned by the fertility of foliage and fauna
outline an intricate design of a river’s path.
The topography of which is entirely unique
for the span of its 44-mile downward run.
The essence of its fluidity, the body of river,
it changes over so much distance and time.
Rustic boulder crags and marshy meadows
choreograph the tempo of the water
from rapid rushes of current into soft gentle laps.
The river plays host to an abundance of life.
All of which rotate in cycles of birth and death.
Tadpoles fend for themselves in pockets of shallow water
until they loft up on newfound legs to grassy banks,
innocuously becoming prey for hungry avian predators.
By the estuary where the river and the ocean meet,
four slow footfalls creak on warped wooden planks.
The woman’s eyes cast down to mask a well of tears.
She spoke the truth, trying not to choke on the words:
“It’s metastasized; it’s everywhere…."
The man on the pier paused midstep to catch his breath.
The scope of the landscape appeared to abruptly give way.
His gaze followed the line of the narrow riverbed
as it fanned out in layers onto a broad sandy beach
to rest on the horizon break, from ocean to open sky.
Scheme | XXXXX AXXXX AXXAX XBACX XCXXX BXXXX |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110011 1010111101 11100101010 1001001011 010101010101 010111010 01100100110010 111000110101 00100111010001 101111101 010110100010110 11010111001 101010101 100011010 11010110011101 010111101011 11110101101 1110101011010 0111111111101 10101110100100 10100101000101 111111101 01111110111 110110111101 1010110 01101111111 0110101101011 111001101010 11110101001101 111001011101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,445 |
Words | 278 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 38 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 189 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 42 |
About this poem
This poem was written for a great friend and her husband who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I wrote this poem because it was always difficult for me to imagine how she was able to tell him about his prognosis.
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Written on February 17, 2022
Submitted by eileen_j on July 27, 2022
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:23 min read
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"At the River's End" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/133173/at-the-river%27s-end>.
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