Sestina

A forbidding coldness hangs about the poem. It is early autumn, in the “failing light” (Line 2) of late afternoon. It is dreary, rainy, and chilly, which defies both the freshly brewed tea and the wood stove’s attempts to make the kitchen warm and cozy. More unsettling, the grandmother, even as she prepares the late afternoon tea for her granddaughter, holds back tears and hides from the child the raw emotions that move her to sorrow. That the poem never shares with the reader the cause of the grandmother’s emotional pain gives it the deeper chill of a mystery.

The poem reflects Elizabeth Bishop’s grounding in classical music composition, as it is crafted in contrapuntal movement. In contrapuntal music, most familiar to contemporary audiences through the intricate keyboard exercises of Johann Sebastian Bach (whom Bishop much admired), two contrasting melodies are set against each other, usually in staggered simultaneity—the left hand plays one, and the right hand plays the other. In juxtaposing two melodies that are otherwise only loosely related, the composition creates an unexpected harmony and cooperation between two separate melodies.

The grandmother dominates the first four stanzas and creates the poem’s forbidding chill.