Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got till it's gone?

How often do you find yourself longing to go back to a certain time in your childhood and relive it, over and over again? I know I more than occasionally find myself reminiscing about my elementary school days and how easy everything once was. All four of this week’s poems discuss various aspects of childhood, such as family relationships and youthful attitudes.
Two of the poems deal particularly with parental issues. Margaret Atwood’s “Bored” is supposed to be about the death of her father, and the “he” she refers to in the poem is most likely him. She is describing a time when she worked with her father outdoors and in the house on a daily basis. Atwood stresses how boring the whole procedure was, so boring in fact that she began to notice this most minute details about the things she worked on and about her father. The comparisons of her mundane tasks to those of animals and the dreary, lagging structure of the poem show how tedious she considered the activities. Her attitude changes in line 30 when she claims that that time spent with her father seems “sunnier” and that “Perhaps though boredom is happier.” By this Atwood means that she would like to have that boredom back if it meant she could have one more second with her father. The last few mournful lines of the poem—“Now I wouldn’t be so bored”—are the very embodiment of the old cliché that you truly don’t know what you have until it’s gone.
Theodore Roethke addresses quite a different parent-child relationship in “My Papa’s Waltz.” On the surface, the poem could be considered a light-hearted story about a young boy dancing with his father. But that is only a façade; this work is much deeper because it shows a complex and actually pretty tragic relationship between a boy and his father. Words like “whiskey” and “dizzy” indicate that the father is drunk, something that probably happens often, and words like “death,” “beat,” “battered,” and “scraped” imply an abusive relationship. It seems as if this boy rarely gets to be with his father, so when he is he relishes moment regardless of the circumstances. The last line of the poem, “still clinging to your shirt,” is a very strong conclusion because it implies how strongly the son clings to his father emotionally. The poem’s simple form is an uncomplicated way of describing pretty complicated content.
Rather than describe a connection between one child and one parent, Fleur Adcock portrays a whole family dynamic in “The Video,” a short poem about the birth of a new baby girl. Ceri, the older daughter, experiences some jealousy when her mother gives birth to Laura. Laura is instantly the focus of the poem—her name is the second word in the first line—while Ceri just “watched” from the background as her father pushed her out of the way. Perhaps at one time she wanted a younger sibling, but after seeing how her parents reacted to Laura she changes her mind and wishes to be the center of their universe again. Using the video tape of the birth she fast-forwards and rewinds the event, pretending her sister was never born. This poem has a very light and humorous tone to it, describing a common situation in modern movies and television shows.
Intense imagery is used to describe Dylan Thomas’s carefree and happy youth in “Fern Mill.” He does not mention any family members, but he reminisces about his days spent playing on a farm, considering himself the “prince” of his surroundings and “happy as the grass was green.” Thomas describes himself as vibrant and full of life, just itching to explore and experience more things. However, as the poem goes on he begins to see the reality of his transition from boyhood to adulthood and just how precious time is. He uses religious allusions, such as Adam and the Garden of Eden, the “holy stream,” and the Sabbath to indicate his belief that God is in control of time and his destiny. The tone changes a bit—but not too drastically—toward the end of the poem when Thomas realizes his own mortality and wishes he could have appreciated his childhood more when he had the chance. It seems that he enjoyed it immensely, though; he ought to be pretty content with his experiences. Thomas does an excellent job of using his own memories to compel the reader to remember their own childhood.
Although “The Video” made me laugh, the other three poems made me feel quite sad. Not only did I sympathize with the poets and their individual situations, but I also reflected a great deal on my own childhood and relationships with my parents and sister. It’s very bittersweet to realize how much things have changed since I was a toddler—relationships with people, my own attitude, and so much more. Joni Mitchell certainly said it best when she sang, “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.”