“When Big Trees Fall” Analysis of the Poem
The poem is about what it feels like to lose a loved one or someone that has had a profound impact on you. It describes some of the feelings and things we go through after a loss. The voice of the poem describes the way the air seems to become “light” and “sterile.” It’s hard to catch your breath. The air feels heavy and stale.
“When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.”
The poem uses “great trees fall” to symbolize the loss of a person. When a tree falls, the ground shakes and rumbles for a second. I would imagine it almost feels like time stands still for that moment. That shake and rumble is felt all around. Comparably, when a soul leaves the body, the impact of that soul departing is felt deeply and by people that aren’t necessarily there at that moment. The “rocks on distant hills shudder” symbolizes the way in which death causes people, even people far away, to feel the pain and despair of the loss. The “lions hunker down in tall grass even elephants lumber after safety” is meant to show the way some people react to loss. Loss can create fear and despair. It makes you want to run, to hide, to forget reality.
“Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.”
The voice of the poem shows us the emotional effects of losing someone close to you. I think in this stanza, the loss of a “great soul” means the loss of somebody that had a profound impact on that person’s life. The voice of the poem explains the way that “our souls” are “dependent upon their nurture,” and when they die, it leaves us feeling small, like our souls have shriveled and shrunk.
We can’t escape having to feel the pain that comes with loss. It is part of being human. When you lose someone, it leaves you feeling full of despair and misery. It leaves an agonizing pain that nothing can heal and sometimes a little anger. It leaves a wound that will never heal only to be reinjured with the memories and regret of things left unsaid. The voice of the poem uses words to make the reader identify with the pain and despair that comes with loss but also gives a sense of slowly healing and for peace to bloom.
“And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.”
Works Cited
- Angelou, Maya. “When Great Trees Fall.” PoemHunter.com, 1990, www.poemhunter.com/.
