Getting By

Getting By
By: Gary L. Lark

"Ive planted trees and cleaned toilets for the park and i never left the woods" "Forty years later and im still getting by"

This poem is about how some people are happy just living the same way over and over again. Some people like living day by day and only thinking about the next day and nothing after that. This man is just settling for where he is in life and is not trying to obtain anything more.

This man loves just getting by even if its not the best thing in life, he is just happy with what he has and he doesnt need anymore to be happy. He is content with what he is doing with his life just by living everyday the same way and trying to survive with the money he has.

This man has been living like this for forty years and he does not want to change now because he is finally happy where he is and he doesnt want anything to change. He could not be any happier even if he had a million dollars because he would know that he didnt earn it and that wouldnt be right for him.

Yesterday

Yesterday

by: W.S Merwin

" Oh I say, the feeling again the cold of my fathers hand for the last time"

This quote i think means that this is the last time he will ever touch his fathers hand because he is leaving the world and he will never see his father again. i think this quote is also talking about the past and how his father lost his father the same way. that is why the narrator does not want to leave him because he knows that he will never see him again. I think the fathers hands being cold symbolizes how peoples hands are cold when they are sick or dying.

I think because he will never see him again he does not want to leave right away, he wants to cherish the last time he spends with him. He will wait with him no matter where else he has to go because he knows that this is more important than anything else right now. I also think his father told him stories of how he didn't visit his parents in the past and he regrets it now. the narrator does not want to be in regret that is why he will do whatever to spend time with them.