March 29

"The Widow's Lament in Springtime" by William Carlos Williams is about having lost the ability to see beauty in things once thought so in the aftermath of a woman's husband's death.  I am writing about this poem because I had chosen to write my poetry anthology over the different stages of death and how they are written about in poetry.  The woman is noticing the things that, "were [her] joy / formerly..."(17-18)  The end is sad and suggests that the woman wishes to simply die or "sink into the marsh"(28) near some new trees with new flowers that her son tells her about.  I liked the lines that say:

where the new grass

flames as it has flames

often before but not

with the cold fire

that closes round me this year.

Williams wants the readers to know that there is still a fire burning in this woman, but it is a cold fire, a fire that leads her to wanting death.