"Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life."  JOHN UPDIKE


Penumbrae

 

The shadows have their seasons, too.

The feathery web the budding maples

cast down upon the sullen lawn


bears but a faint relation to

high summer's umbrageous weight

and tunnellike continuum—


black leached from green, deep pools

wherein a globe of gnats revolves

as airy as an astrolabe.


The thinning shade of autumn is

an inherited Oriental,

red worn to pink, nap worn to thread.


Shadows on snow look blue. The skier,

exultant at the summit, sees his poles

elongate toward the valley: thus


each blade of grass projects another

opposite the sun, and in marshes

the mesh is infinite,


as the winged eclipse an eagle in flight

drags across the desert floor

is infinitesimal.


And shadows on water!—

the beech bough bent to the speckled lake

where silt motes flicker gold,


or the steel dock underslung

with a submarine that trembles,

its ladder stiffened by air.


And loveliest, because least looked-for,

gray on gray, the stripes

the pearl-white winter sun


hung low beneath the leafless wood

draws out from trunk to trunk across the road

like a stairway that does not rise.


Analyses of Penumbrae:



Kael Penumbrae was chosen as our difficult poem, not because it is unintelligible, but because of the need to disect the lengthy poem.  The poem includes an endless amount imagery and similes to get Updike's point across.  I believe what Updike was trying to say through this poem was that with every beginning, there is an end, and he uses nature as a back drop to prove his point.  After visiting http://www.thefreedictionary.com/penumbrae, I found that the word Penumbrae refers to a shadowing, either by physical nature or by a personal one.  Updike is showing that with every turn we take, in this case it is the turns in nature, there are shadows to be found, but wherein the light may shine again.  One could believe this poem is pessimistic due to the outreach of the wrods to shadows, however, I believe it is just Updike's way of proving that there is much to nature we do not always see, and sometimes the most beautiful things are that in shadows.


Kim

To me, this is a difficult poem because from the beginning to almost the end I did not understand exactly what the author would like to say to us. Until the last stanza, I just realized the meaning of this poem so far that it does not matter where we are, what we do, or what our careers are, everyone has a unique character and a unique talent as a shadow. The others could see it or not because they didn't discover inside from us yet or maybe wet expose it yet. That's why the speaker show us the value of each season and how they are beautiful with their own characters such as the leafless wood.


Marry Penumbrae - I think the poem is about life, aging, and death. The poem gave many descriptions that every happiness has an end to it. Updike used seasons, colors, and objects to give readers the imagery of how every beginning has an end. Each season has its own beauty, colors, and expression