Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In "Under the River," Jane Hirshfield delves into the notion of duality-between the ordinary and the extraordinary, between transience and permanence, between nature and human construct. The poem captures the beauty and resilience of life's routines while hinting at a greater, elusive world that exists parallel to our own. It's a piece that's both intimate and expansive, grounded in physical details while reaching toward metaphysical contemplation.

The opening lines, "Under the river of the world, the world. / And beneath that palace, a palace -- just the same," introduce the concept of layers or dimensions of existence. This echoes themes of infinity and cyclical patterns; there's always something beyond what we see. The river and palace are images rich with symbolic connotations-the river as a symbol of life's ever-moving, ever-changing course, and the palace as a metaphor for grandiosity or the sublime. These are the monumental entities that exist in parallel to our mortal experiences, unchanging despite our fleeting interactions with them.

This ethereal backdrop serves as a contrast to the vividly described, grounded event that follows: boys diving "over and over into blue sky." The very act of diving implies a brief transgression into another realm-a realm where one is untethered by gravity, existing momentarily "between world and world." Yet, this is not an unsettling transition; it "always greets them the same, / laughter, then towels, then going home with watery ears." These routine post-dive activities bring the boys back to reality, but not without traces of the extraordinary: the water in their ears that continues to sing, "hushing the rest" and making mundane noises like "family, dinnerware, tires spinning by" seem "stilled."

The structure of the poem is free-form, devoid of a specific rhyme scheme, reflecting the idea that life's most ordinary moments can't be neatly categorized or understood. This form also allows for the fluid transition between the terrestrial and the sublime, as the poem weaves in and out of both realms seamlessly.

In its concluding lines, the poem returns to the imagery of rooms and palace architecture, but here, the linoleum floor is "marble-cool" and the ceilings are "stencilled with waterlilies, stars." This final vision fuses the mundane and the extraordinary, suggesting that the two are not so different-that in everyday life, there exists the capacity for awe and wonder, if only we pause to notice. "Under the River" thus serves as an ode to the mysterious beauty of the familiar, inviting us to see the exceptional qualities in our routine existence. It also calls attention to the liminal spaces in life, the moments of transition that are neither here nor there, but which carry a weight and beauty all their own.

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