Metaphors & Imagery in"Pigeon Woman"

In "Pigeon Woman," poet May Swenson approaches the consideration of her title subject from a third-person perspective. It is not an omniscient point-of-view, nor is it totally fly-on-the-wall objective. May Swenson has a subjective position in the portrait she paints of an elderly woman feeding a flock of pigeons. That subjectivity, her attitude towards the whole affair, comes across in the tone of the poem: a grey, vaguely horrified fascination with the "pigeon woman" and her daily activity.

Greys and muted colors are the literal palette with which Swenson conveys her observation. The pigeon woman's world is "slate, or dirty marble colored," with all other colors - rusts, blues, "rainy greens and oily purples" - seemingly muddied in the process. The only exceptions are the pigeon woman's accoutrements, "pimento" hair and a pink raincoat, that do not so much counterpoint the ashen world described as become subsumed by it. It is clear that Swenson finds this whole endeavor essentially futile, not even worth the vividness of rage or tragic inference.

Which is not surprising since it is all a metaphor for a life of lost love. "they (sic) are the flints of love" is the line that ends this poem, a very clear reference to the "retreating" waves of pigeons that desert the pigeon woman as soon as her food/love is given away. A flint, like slate, is a grey stone; the preceding colors had been chosen as foreshadowing. Flint, like love, is capable of sparks, of igniting a

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f unattainable fulfillment. The major metaphorical device employed is water. By setting up a figurative environment centered on the impermanent "solidity" of water, Swenson is able to convey through metaphor her own intuitive sense of love's futility. An old woman "wades" into a "lake" of birds to feed them. These are "spinning, crooning waves"; in order to feed them she must "dip" her hand into a sack of bread crumbs, throwing it out to the "choppy, shadowy ripples" of birds. (It is possible that this is meant to recall the hopefulness of Ecclesiastes, 11:1: "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.") The water images change to include the woman. She "seems to rinse her hands" in "the rainy greens and oily purples"; these birds are not a beautiful, deep-blue body of water. But now the woman, like desire, has needs that require water - which the water/birds, like love unreachable, will not let her grasp: ... Almost they let her wet her thirsty fingertips - but drain away in an untouchable tide Disappointment does not deter the determined lover, and the pigeon woman will return day after day to the same experience: purling to meet her when she comes, they are a lake of love. R

Category: Literature - M