Why Sabete is a Rad Girlfriend

Elizabeth San Nicolas
EN321
April 21, 2005

Dylan Thomas’ “The Force That
Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower”

Form:

Five line stanzas – the first three lines use contrasting imagery of creation and destruction – except for a shift in the fourth stanza. The last two tell how the speaker is “dumb” – unable to articulate how in tune he is with the decay of all things.

Stanza I
The same “force” that pushes the flower through the stem pushes the speaker through his youth. The same force that erodes the roots of a tree ages him. The speaker identifies himself as part of nature – subject to the same powers as trees and flowers. And he cannot express to the rose bent crooked by wind that his own youth is affected as well.

Stanza II
The force that “drives the water through the rocks” is the same one that pushes the blood through the speaker’s veins, and that same force that dries streams makes his cease to move.

Stanza III
Pool vs. quicksand – life and death. Wind harnessed by ropes also blows the shroud sail. Man from clay – this same clay makes up the hangman’s lime.

Stanza IV
A change happens here … it doesn’t follow the form of the previous three stanzas. Time leeches at the fountain of youth … and instead of destruction we have healing – “the fallen blood shall calm her sores.” And the speaker cannot express to the elements how we have created a heaven for ourselves of the skies because of our fear of running out of time.

Stanza V
Two lines – And the speaker cannot explain to a dead lover how his time will soon run out as well.
The “force” in the poem is ultimately time. All of nature, man included, is subject to it. Though man has tried to capture and tame time – by creating calendars and time zones and such – the passing of nature’s time is insurmountable and inevitable.

What, you ain't know? Well in case you didn't, be advised that the rumors are indeed true. Sabete and I are now an item, and the above is part of an email she sent me upon my mentioning that, although I'm a poetic ignoramus, I rather admire Dylan Thomas-the above analyzed poem in particular-and I wondered what she thought of it. Not only that, but she bakes some mean-ass snicker doodles. Yes, she's a rad chick.