Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Trilce: 65" by César Vallejo is an evocative exploration of maternal legacy, the passage of time, and the complexity of memory. The speaker, presumably Vallejo, starts by announcing his return to Santiago, signaling a physical and emotional journey. This isn't just any trip; it's a return to the maternal space, a pilgrimage "to drench myself in your blessing and in your lament." Already, we're introduced to dualities-blessings and laments-that suggest a complex relationship with the mother figure and by extension, with the past.

Vallejo delves into the sensory and tangible dimensions of his past, stating that he is "arranging my disillusions and the sore's pink of my false bustling." This line is striking for its rawness; the speaker isn't romanticizing his return but admitting to disillusions and disappointments. He carries with him a sense of weariness, like battle scars from the "false bustling" of life.

What awaits him back in Santiago is not just his mother but an entire landscape of memories and emotional relics: "Your arch of surprise will wait for me, the tonsured columns of your life-wasting longings." The architecture becomes metaphorical, with arches and columns signifying his mother's emotional world, her "life-wasting longings," perhaps aspirations that went unfulfilled.

The poem's physicality continues with the detailing of the house-the patio, the hallway with its moldings, and especially "My tutor armchair," described as grumbling at "great-great-grandchild buttocks, from strap to little strap." The armchair becomes a representation of generational history, a physical link to the past, tired but persistent.

As the speaker embarks on this journey, he is "sifting my purest affections," "axising," and "shaping your formula of love." These are deliberate acts, ones of refining and recalibrating. There is also a sense of urgency: "Can't you hear the plummet panting? Can't you hear the reveilles straining?" The "plummet" and "reveilles" suggest impending changes, perhaps even a sense of doom or finality.

The poem concludes by referring to the mother as "dead immortal." This oxymoron encapsulates the tension between presence and absence, the living and the dead. His mother, though physically absent, lives on, "immortal," in the architecture of his memories and emotions. The final lines delve into this complex immortality, "Between the colonnade of your bones that even a sob cannot tumble down," suggesting that his mother's influence is so powerful, so unshakeable, that it transcends even the most profound expressions of emotion or fate ("not even Destiny could intrude a single finger of his").

In sum, "Trilce: 65" is a poetic tapestry rich in emotional, sensory, and metaphorical textures. It probes the complexities of returning-to a place, to a person, to a past. It captures the intricate emotional architectures that are our relationships with our parents, complicated edifices of love, longing, disappointment, and enduring influence. Vallejo navigates these architectural metaphors to create a poignant map of emotional and physical return, one that leads us to reconsider our own architectures of memory and inheritance.

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