poetry oration- the curtain

The Curtain

BY HAYDEN CARRUTH

Just over the horizon a great machine of death is roaring and rearing.

We can hear it always. Earthquake, starvation, the ever-renewing sump of corpse-flesh.

But in this valley the snow falls silently all day, and out our window

We see the curtain of it shifting and folding, hiding us away in our little house,

We see earth smoothened and beautified, made like a fantasy, the snow-clad trees

So graceful. In our new bed, which is big enough to seem like the north pasture almost

With our two cats, Cooker and Smudgins, lying undisturbed in the southeastern and southwestern corners,

We lie loving and warm, looking out from time to time. “Snowbound,” we say. We speak of the poet

Who lived with his young housekeeper long ago in the mountains of the western province, the kingdom

Of cruelty, where heads fell like wilted flowers and snow fell for many months

Across the pass and drifted deep in the vale. In our kitchen the maple-fire murmurs

In our stove. We eat cheese and new-made bread and jumbo Spanish olives

Which have been steeped in our special brine of jalapeños and garlic and dill and thyme.

We have a nip or two from the small inexpensive cognac that makes us smile and sigh.

For a while we close the immense index of images that is our lives—for instance,

The child on the Mescalero reservation in New Mexico sitting naked in 1966 outside his family’s hut,

Covered with sores, unable to speak. But of course we see the child every day,

We hold out our hands, we touch him shyly, we make offerings to his implacability.

No, the index cannot close. And how shall we survive? We don’t and cannot and will never

Know. Beyond the horizon a great unceasing noise is undeniable. The machine,

Like an immense clanking vibrating shuddering unnameable contraption as big as a house, as big as the whole town,

May break through and lurch into our valley at any moment, at any moment.

Cheers, baby. Here’s to us. See how the curtain of snow wavers and then falls back.

My poem is about a couple. A couple that has found a kind of peace in the world, even with everything that they know goes on out there. you can tell from the line "Just over the horizon a great machine of death is roaring and rearing" that they realize a force of sadness and destruction is out there in the world. I think it weighs on them but they realize there is nothing they can do to stop it. I think the curtain of snow symbolizes a  "[smoothing and beautifying]" of the world. like snow. it doesnt do away with imperfections  it just hides them. It doesn't make the pain of the word go away, to just try and push it down, but it helps you deal with it. There is nothing else you can do. i think that the mood is somber, because of the imagery they use "We can hear it always. Earthquake, starvation, the ever-renewing sump of corpse-flesh." but i think the tone is a we will move on kind of thing. "Cheers, baby. Here’s to us." i think they use contrast to make the tone. the contrast of the huge overcoming monster of the pain of the world, and a small little cottage in a vale. Exposed to the elements but still keeping on.