Roland E.T Mhasvi The Flowers of Yesterday. An Anthology of Poems

MOVING HOUSE

They had laid him flat on his back
On a creak-springed bed.
In a dingy little room gloomed over
With the wan flush of a sombre twilight,
Lit down by a fading light bulb
That flickered naked in fits and starts,
Like a feeble old blindman
Reeling his way forward against a surging crowd,
Certain only of a despairing yearning
For light to illuminate his fate,
And the cry that echoes emptily
Down the writhing darkness of his world

They watched him, silent ghosts
In the half of that dingy little room.
Drag in his breath with laboured industry,
Grunting and groaning with a gultural grind,
Helplessly heeding the heaving battles
Of his distant chest, the janing life within
Choking on the threshold
Of an old birth to outside realm.
Time and time again a ghost
Would reach out with shadowy hand,
Claw darkly to mark and mark again
With watery cross the burning brow,
To ease the burden of an old man’s body
Pregnant with a ninety-year-old soul,
Caught up and overwhelmed at last
In the last labour of its terrestrial toil

They saw his chest rise and fall
Rise and fall beneath the tattered blanket;
They heard the wheezing breath rush in and out
Winding through the ruins of an open mouth;

Moving House Poem Analysis

Mhasvi’s “Moving House” presents the overarching theme of death, it inevitability to the human race and the shift from the physical world into the spiritual as shown through the disembodied persona who narrates of an ailing old man who was at the brink of demise. The persona presents the physical fragility of the old man as his soul wrestles to leave the world of hardship and poverty thus is transferred to the realm of the spirits where there is no suffering. Thus, the poet portrays how depite do debilitating nature, it is an avenue of escape from the turmoils of the physical world.

Thematic Concerns

1. Debilitating nature of death

2. Inevitability of death

3. Death as a sanctuary

4. Sickness/Pain & Suffering

Styles Used

1. Vivid visual imagery

2. Symbolism

3. Figurative expressions 4. Similes 5. Third person narrative

Death is
1. presented as inevitable *(helplessness of people…they just watched, chained bystanders).
2. sanctuary for humanity (avenue of escape from a world of misery)
3. its debilitating nature (the transition is viewed as painful and imbued with suffering)

The persona takes the reader through the vestiges of an ailing man’s borrowed time before he relinquishes and succumbs to the cold and inevitability nature of death. The moment is tainted with pain and helplessness of those in the vicinity witnessing the inevitability of nature wrecking its course.

Nuances of Pain/Helplessness

●1. The poet portrays nuances of helplessness as the old man’s life ebbs aways. This is shown as the old man is painted as “a fading light bulb that flickered nakedly in fits and starts” portrayal to his pain and agony.

●. The old man body is characterized as “burden(ed)” with a “ninety-year-old soul” depicting the need to be released by death into freedom from the pain he was suffering from.

●. The use of gestation related jagoon like “pregnant” and “labour” is synonymous to the birth of a baby which by extension shows how the old man’s spirit was to be birthed from the disease and age-ridden body.

●. The refrain of the third persona narrative pronoun “they” depicts how the onlookers watched the agony of the old man yet never assisted to ease the pain of death thus portraying his helpless situation portraying how humanity is helpless towards fate.

●. The persona portrays how the old man stood at the brink of death as he is illustrated as “choking on the threshold” which is synonymous to the entrance of a door which by extension may mean the transition into the spiritual realm.

●. Mhasvi portrays the inevitability of death as the old man’s onlookers stand besides marking him with “a watery cross” which is to ease his passage into the afterlife.

●. Mhasvi portrays the debilitating nature of death as the victim stoops to painful fate. This is shown through alliteration as the old man’s breathe “rattled and clattered” portraying his agony.

●. The persona’s melancholy portrays how the load of death weighs heavy on the old man’s body as “heave spasmed his body” further magnifying his pain.

●. The poet paints death as a “Curse of all humanity” as no can escape it’s inevitable path thus rendering mankind as helplessness towards death.

IMPACT OF VISUAL IMAGERY AND DISCRIPTIVE DICTION* (in relation to the sense of the poem)

■. The poet makes use of visual imagery as to depict the debilitating nature of death. This is shown as the old man’s pain is personified into darkness that “writhes… His world”

■. The old man’s life is characterized by “a fading light bulb” that “fits and starts” thus portraying how his life is slowly ebbing away.

■. The onlookers are painted as “silent ghosts” as they helplessly watch his passing, further proving how death renders humanity helpless.

■. The use of gestation related jargon presents how the old man’s soul seeks release as it is in “the last labour of its terrestrial toil” from its “timeless sleep.”

■. The debilitating nature of death is further presented as at the moment of the old man’s death, the world is “collapsed” which by extension is reference to the body which is left soulless.

■. The old man is characterized as a “blind man” but has found “his light” upon his passing presenting how death is an avenue of escape from a bitter world.

■. The title “Moving House” is synonymous to the transition from the realm of the living into that of the spiritual further magnifying death as an avenue of escape

ATMOSPHERE/MOOD (first stanza)

1. Despairing

2. Gloomy

3. Melancholic

4. Inordinately sorrowful