The Burial of a Family - on Robert Frost's "Home Burial"

This poem is not only about a home burial as in a burial at home, but the burial of a home. In the conversation (centered around the death of their child) between "Amy" and her unnamed husband, it is revealed that not only have the parents been separated from their child through his death, but also from each other, emotionally and physically. The first example of husband and wife being separated is geographic, occurring in the poem's first line which reads, "He [sees] her from the bottom of the stairs," then is continued when she "refuse[s] him any help" (13) in coming to understand her thoughts when he inquires about them. This second occurrence of distance reveals emotional difference between them; the wife is "terrified" (9) at the sight of the "little graveyard" (24) which contains their "[child]" (31), but the husband, on looking out the same window, states, "I never noticed [the graveyard] from here before," (22). This difference is the distance which now separates them. Amy believes that her husband has no feelings (76) and does not care (101) that their son is dead, and the husband believes that Amy "Takes [her] mother-loss . . . [too] inconsolably" (67) and wrongs him by looking to people other than him for comfort (41). The death of the family is made even more evident toward the end of the poem when the wife, having threatened to leave since line 39, is not only halfway out the door (118), but (it is implied) has a person coming to fetch her ("There's someone coming down the road!" (115). This premeditated decision of Amy's to leave heavily implies that their marriage has come to an end and she will not be coming back.