Under the Lemon Tree

"Under the Lemon Tree" - Poetic Analysis

Not rain, but fine mist

falls from my lemon tree,

a balm of droplets in green shadow.

Six years now my mother gone to earth.

This dew, light as footsteps of the dead.

She often walked out here, craned her neck,

considered the fruit, hundreds of globes

in their leathery hides, figuring on

custard and pudding, meringue and

hollandaise.

But her plans didn't work out.

The tree goes on unceasingly—lemons fall

and fold into earth and begin again—

me, I come here as a salve against heat,

come to languish, to let the soft bursts—

essence of citrus, summer's distillate—

drift into my face and settle. Water and gold

brew in the quiet deeps at the far end

of the season. Leaves swallow the body

of light and the breath of water brims over.

My hands cup each other the way hers did.

Mist falls from my lemon tree, not the rain

My mother passed away 6 years ago.

The dew here is as light as the footsteps of the dead,

She would often come here to walk and look around for fruits to make custard with.

That is not how it went, however.

The tree remained untouched, as seasons went by

Lemons have fallen down over this time.

I come here to counter the heat,

I have to come lose myself, to feel the soft touch,

To see the soothing distillation of citrus

Come and settle onto my face. Water and gold

Shine in the deep ends in the distance.

Leaves keep the light away by casting a light as

The water moves along under its shadow.

My hands cup each other the way hers did.

Anmol Bhatia & Rohan Nakra

Paraphrase

Tension

Character Tension (internal only):

• speaker has troubling pulling herself together
• no other characters

Character v Setting:

• no conflict with setting, the setting reminds the speaker of good memories

Speaker v Audience:

• no apparent conflict

Under the Lemon Tree

By: Marsha De La O

Connotations

Title

• Imagery: touch, sight
• describes setting and speaker's emotions
• Simile: "This dew, light as footsteps of the dead"
• compares dew to footsteps of the dead
• invokes certain emotions within the speaker about her deceased mother
• Personification: “Leaves swallow the body of light and the breath of water brims over”

Shifts

• Represents the main idea: the beauty of nature
• the emotions it can invoke in people
• The lemon tree brings up past memories about the speaker’s mother
• The tree is a major aspect in all the different elements and poetic devices.

Major shift: “But her plans didn't work out.”

• Time/setting shift: talks about her mother in the past, herself in the present
• Key word: "but"

Stanzas:

• Varying in length (paragraphs, one-liners)
• big-big-one-big-one
• bigger stanzas are more poetic
• one-liners are more straightforward
• creates emphasis on one-liners

Theme

Subject

• Death and how to cope with it

• The importance of memories

• The importance and beauty of mother nature

• One of the ways to cope with the death of a dear one is to try to relive the moments you had with them through things that hold special importance when it comes to that person.

• The importance of memories is realized when you revisit the memories in dark and difficult times. It is important to establish memories with important people and things because one day, those memories are all that will remain.

• Symbols: lemon tree representing the nature of a mother
• protective, soothing, reassuring
• Motifs: the beauty of mother nature
• represented in the past and future settings
• Structure: enjambments, single lines, free verse
• representing the speaker's out-of-control, complex thoughts
• Diction/Sound Devices: general word choice create...
• a peaceful and soothing picture of the setting and scene
• desperation in speaker's voice

Attitude

The speaker has a calm tone because nature is being discussed. The speaker...

• feels sorry for herself
• poet = speaker
• feels lost without her mother
• is thankful for nature (finds peace in her invoked memories)

Title

• The title tells us that the poem will have something to do with a lemon tree. #duh

• It can be reasonably assumed that the lemon tree means something to the speaker in the poem.

• It could have a connotation or could be a symbol, which might help uncover the meaning and theme of the poem.