Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In Audre Lorde's "Oaxaca," the poet delves into a rich, layered exploration of the land and its relationship with the people who cultivate it. The poem is more than a mere description of a landscape or a snapshot of rural life; it is a nuanced portrayal of the tension between the slow, enduring process of tending to the earth and the sudden, unpredictable forces of nature that can both nourish and destroy.

The opening line, "Beneath the carving drag of wood / the land moves slowly," immediately introduces us to a world where laborious human effort meets the almost lethargic pace of the land's natural processes. This theme is further expanded in the lines "Growing their secret in brown earth / spread like a woman / daring." Here, the land is anthropomorphized as a woman who keeps her secrets well-hidden, revealing them only through the slow, deliberate process of cultivation.

The poem moves beyond merely depicting nature as passive; it portrays it as an equal partner, and sometimes a formidable adversary, in the process of farming. The phrase "weary work for still-eyed men / who break the crust nurse the seed / and a hard watch through the dry season," underscores the almost Herculean task of coaxing life from an unforgiving earth. Yet the poem also acknowledges the irrevocable link between man and land, exemplified by the careful nurturing of the seed and the "hard watch" that follows it.

Lorde's narrative then takes a turn, focusing on the looming power of nature: "Yet at the edge of bright thin day / past the split plow they look / to the hills to the brewing thunder / for the storm is known." While the land moves slowly, it also possesses the power of quick transformation through natural phenomena like thunderstorms. It is a balance of dread and hope as the "brewing thunder" could bring much-needed rain for the crops or devastation for the efforts of an entire season.

The poet continues to emphasize the land's endurance: "Though the thunder's eye / can crack with a flash / the glass-brittle crust / of a mountain's face / the land moves slowly." Here, even in the face of nature's most explosive moments, the land remains a constant, moving at its own inexorable pace.

"All a man's strength / his son's muscled arms / to carve one sleeve / into rock-defiant earth. And the spread land waits." The poet seems to say that while human labor may leave its mark on the earth, shaping it and breaking it, the land itself is ever-patient, eternally waiting, and fundamentally unyielding.

The poem concludes with the lines "Slow long the plowing / through dry-season brown / and the land moves slowly. / But lightning comes." These lines encapsulate the essence of the poem: the unending cycle of labor, expectation, and sudden change. The land's movement may be slow, but it is never truly static. It lives in a state of latent potential, where at any moment, the lightning - an electrifying change or a devastating blow - can come.

In its entirety, "Oaxaca" is a finely woven tapestry of nature, labor, and life. It reminds us of the dualities that define our existence - the slow and the swift, the gentle and the violent, the constant and the changing - offering a lens through which to contemplate our own place in this intricate web of relations.

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