Poetry Response 4

Because it intrigued me in class, I read "The Halo That Would Not Light." I had read through this poem before class, but had a tough time making sense of it. It seemed like Brock-Broido had just thrown a bunch of random, unconnected images together and called it a poem. However, when we read it again in class and someone mentioned the "raptor" referring to a stork, and the "tiny body" referring to a baby, it made me think that maybe the poet was describing a childhood, but a very dark and depressing one. The word "raptor" seems like a scary and negative image of a stork, and the fact that the poem says "left you like a finch" sounds like the baby was born into a sad and lonely existence. Also the poem seems to be chronological, because it starts out talking about the "tiny body" of a baby, then proceeds to mention a child. And the last line, rather than death, sounded more like whoever experienced this awful childhood was escaping. The line  "Is done" sounds more relieving and freeing than morbid to me for some reason. Before I knew this poem was actually about Lucie Brock-Broido's childhood friend who died of cancer, I assumed it was about a child who had been abused or neglected. What lead me to think this was the descriptions of various places, such as "In the scarab-colored hollow," "With linden leaves in a child's cardboard box" and "Hunting as the leather seats of swings go back/ And forth with no one in them." All of these lines sound lonely and dark, as if the love and happiness were missing from this person's childhood. Along with that, no parents or people at all are mentioned, which further supports the poem's feeling of emptiness and neglect. However, when I was told that it was actually about a child who died of cancer, the saddness of this person's childhood still made sense, just in a different context. However, the last few lines took on a new meaning entirely.