Ode to the Drum

In "Ode to the Drum," one line I liked was, " Gazelle, I killed you for your skin's exquisite touch, for how easy it is to be nailed to a board weathered raw as white butcher paper." The drum maker kills a gazelle and makes a drum out of it. Even in the form of a drum, the drum maker brings the gazelle back to life. Also I liked the line "You know it wasn't anger, that made me stop my heart, till the hammer fell." This was a significant line in the poem because it tells you clearly that the man was not killing the gazelle out of anger or because he wanted to but because him and his daughter needed food and they needed to live. He killed the gazelle out of necessity. But to make up for killing it anyways he uses every part of the gazelle. Using every part of the animal was in a way rectifying it because he killed the gazelle in the first place.

He makes it's hide into a drum then beats into it, in a way giving the gazelle life again. Out of the gazelle came a new life, the life of a drum and the music and beats.He feels sorry for the gazelle, but tells it that he will make good use out of it because he is going to not only make a drum out of it but also use its meat to feed his child."Pressure can make everything whole again, brass nails tacked into the ebony wood your face has been carved five times. I have to drive trouble from the valley. Trouble in the hills. Trouble on the river too." In this line, the gazelle, in the form of the drum which is made of ebony wood helps the drum maker and his people make their "troubles" go away. The sound and beat of the drum eases their pain.

I also liked the line "Ghost cannot slip back into the body's drum." When reading this line it made me think that anything the author had done wrong or even right for that matter, he could not change and never go back. I took the line to mean that once your gone, you can never go back. I related it to when you say or do something that hurts or offends someone; even though you said it maybe in the heat of the moment, you can never go back and do it over.The whole poem might have been hard for some to understand, but the basic message besides not being able to go back after doing something awful, or what you have to do is that at the end of the day after all that you have to live with yourself knowing exactly what you did whether it be right or wrong.