"The Layers" by Stanley Kunitz

The song makes me feel pretty forlorn over the reality that we all back up the detriment of friends or loved ones as we journey through life. Ultimately, we volition also leave this existence. As such, the poem reminds me of this reality in a way that makes me melancholic when thinking of lost friends or loved ones. As the loudspeaker laments, "In a ascension wind / the manic dust of my friends, / those who fell along the way, / bitterly stings my face" (Kunitz 1). Yet, the poem also inspires me and motivates me to embrace life, including its joys and pains. For the speaker hears a voice in the clouds which intones he should "Live in the layers, / not on the litter" (Kunitz 1). By documentation in the layers, the speaker is able to face the next chapter of his life with optimism and acceptance.

The tone of the poem is genuinely fatalistic in the speaker's acceptance of his own mortality and the way that life offers us continual leaving and transport as we journey through existence. However, there is also a degree of optimism in the poem when the speaker determines he impart live in the layers and "with my will intact to go / wheresoever I need to go, / and every stone on the pass precious to me" (Kunitz 1). In this sense, the poem has a dualistic tone. As McCormick (2) says of the tone of the poem in her review of it, "Realistic optimism with a touch of fatalism - now that appeals to me." In this I believe we distinctly see the poet's intention in writing "The Layers.

" Despite the loss

Stanley Kunitz' poem "The Layers" is a sad poem that offers optimism despite the human condition. While we may suffer loss and ultimately the loss of our own life in this existence, the poem inspires us to live life to the fullest and view it as the precious gift it is for all human beings. In this way, the creator is able to transform some of the sadness in living into a creative piece that reminds us of the preciousness of life.

"Stanley Kunitz." Wikipedia, 2009. 10 Jan. 2009 .

Detail Five: I am not make with my changes (Image: life for me will go on as before)

Kunitz, Stanley. "The Layers." 10 Jan. 2009 .

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