Five Flights Up

“Five Flights Up” is a narrative poem and a lyric. The work meets the criteria for a narrative poem because it tells a story. The story isn’t action-packed, but there’s still a plot with characters and events. There’s a barking dog and a quivering bird, and there’s action as night becomes morning and the dog’s owner yells at him. Additionally, the poem fits into the lyric category since it’s short and documents a personal moment witnessed by the speaker. Even though the speaker is overwhelmingly objective and distant, the poem remains a product of scenes they observed from, as the title suggests, “five flights up” in their home.

The speaker’s tone is specific. It’s “[s]till dark,” says the speaker in Line 1, so the poem begins at a specific time of day: Night. The speaker, who also serves as the narrator, then introduces the first character—the “unknown bird” who “sits on his usual branch” (Line 2). The tone remains specific. The speaker explains that they don’t know this bird—it’s not a pet or a creature they’ve taken the time to name. Yet they’re not unfamiliar with the bird since they know it’s on “his usual branch” (Line 2). The “usual” implies some recognition since the speaker must have seen the bird before to know that he frequently sits on that branch.

In Line 3, the speaker introduces the second critical character—the “little dog next door.” The specificity persists; the speaker details the size of the dog and where he is. The precise tone manifests when the speaker says the dog “barks in his sleep / inquiringly, just once” (Lines 3-4). Here, the meticulousness brings mystery to the speaker’s tone. The specific word “inquiringly” (Line 4) leads to the question: What was the dog inquiring into? The speaker isn’t specific about what sparked the dog’s curious bark. The same goes for the bird. The bird “inquires / once or twice, quavering” (Lines 5-6), yet the speaker never directly addresses the contents of the bird’s queries or “[q]uestions” (Line 7).

On one hand, the speaker cultivates a specific tone. At the same time, the speaker crafts an elusive attitude. They’re specific about some things and inexact about other things. The speaker refers to the dog’s and bird’s inquiries as “[q]uestions” (Line 7), but they admit they’re not sure that’s the correct term when they add “if that is what they are” (Line 7). They might be questions, they might not be questions, so the tone is somewhat puzzling.

Whether they’re questions or not, they’re “answered directly, simply, / by day itself” (Lines 8-9). Once again, the speaker mixes specificity with ambiguity. The speaker tells exactly how day answered the alleged questions, but they refrain from detailing the questions. As for how day can answer the questions in the first place—that’s due to the literary device known as personification: The speaker provides day with human traits—the ability to reply to the animals who work as examples of anthropomorphism, since the bird and the dog, like humans, can articulate supposed questions.

In Stanza 2, morning arrives; it’s a lot like the speaker—“ponderous, meticulous” (Line 10). To describe the morning, the speaker uses a literary device called imagery: With vivid words and a meticulous tone, the speaker makes a picture. There’s “gray light streaking each bare branch” (Line 11), and “each single twig” (Line 12) forms “another tree, of glassy veins” (Line 13). The bird is still on the tree, and he “seems to yawn” (Line 14). The “seems” circles back to the elusive tone. It looks like the bird is yawning, but the speaker doesn’t want to say he’s yawning for sure.

Meanwhile, the dog is awake as he “runs in his yard” (Line 15). The speaker then introduces the third character in the story as the owner sternly yells at the dog, saying, “You ought to be ashamed!” (Line 17). The owner’s admonishment puzzles the speaker and, thus, adds to the perplexing tone. “What has he done?” wonders the speaker (Line 18). The speaker doesn’t answer their question. They return to imagery and provide a picture of the dog as he “bounces cheerfully up and down” (Line 19) and “rushes in circles in the fallen leaves” (Line 20).

The speaker’s tone is confident and sure in Line 21 when they state, “Obviously, he has no sense of shame.” The speaker explains,

He and the bird know everything is answered,

all taken care of,

no need to ask again (Lines 22-24).

What’s obvious to the speaker might not be so apparent to the reader. It’s not undoubtedly clear how “everything is answered” (Line 22) and “all taken care of” (Line 23). Yet the speaker’s exclamation—“Yesterday brought to today so lightly!" (Line 25)—provides a hint: The dog and the bird are free from shame because they go with the flow and let time do its work and take them from last night to the morning. The theme of time and effortlessness manifests in the final line when the speaker finally refers to themselves as they admit that they find yesterday “almost impossible to lift” (Line 26). Going back in time requires hard work since it goes against the natural procession of things that the dog and bird embrace.