The poem that most clearly addresses the cyclical nature of time is Angie Estes’ “Almost Autumn” in which she employs various tactics to explain that despite human life and death, nature and time continue to progress, infinitely. The poem begins in medias res with the line “and the sky this morning already a December/sky in Venice” (Estes). Not only is this an incomplete thought, but it also begins with a lowercase “and,” both of which signal that though this is the beginning of the poem it is part of something larger, the reader only catches a portion. Going forward, every stanza and every line is enjambed causing a sense of continuity and flow to the poem. In the same way that time continues to flow with disregard for the beginning and ending of life, so the poem flows with disregard for the beginning and ending of lines and stanzas.
Throughout the poem there are multiple references to time elapsing through seasons and hours of the day. The poem itself is titled “Almost Autumn” significant in that it could have just as easily been titled “Late Summer” and be equally accurate, but rather Estes chooses to use the title to project into the future, a continuation of time into the next season. There are multiple months from various seasons mentioned in the poem. Line 1-2 states that there is “a December sky in Venice,” followed by a flashback to May and the falling of the pecan blossoms, and then a temporal jump to the narrator being in August (or almost autumn). Not only are the seasons changing, but also the time of day. Again, the poem begins with describing the morning, then describing the night, reference to “the world turning/away,” and a “mourning dove” mounting its perch to coo. This shifting of time and season is given an association with death.
The last sentence of the poem is: “When the sky gets dark enough/ for all the stars to be seen, what we’ll need/ is not some pleated ocean waving/ adieu, but a word, the last/ in French films: Fin, what we will use/ to swim away.” Here there is a friction between the linear timed life of people and the cyclical time of nature. Adieu, in the French, is a temporary goodbye, a way of saying “until we meet again” whereas fin is a definite ending. The waves say adieu as it roll in and out in a cyclical pattern, controlled by the cyclical phases of the moon, the waves represent something that continues without end, like time itself. The human narrator though requires a finite ending, fin. When the end is nigh (“the sky gets dark”) a person experiences a definite and permanent ending, but the natural world, the tides, continue for infinity. Again, nature is unphased by the linear construct of human time.
Similar to Estes’ in discussion of the relationship between linear and cyclical time is Edmund Spenser’s Sonnet 75. Not only does this poem address the end of human life in relation to eternal nature, it takes it a step further and attempts to transcend time itself. Also similar to Estes, Spenser uses the tides as a metaphor for cyclical, indifferent time.
The poem begins “One day I wrote her name upon the strand/ But came the waves and washed it away.” The act of writing her name on the shore is a human attempt to alter nature, but nature does not operate on the narrator’s time. The cycles of the waves washing in prove to be superior to this human imposition as it washing away the writing. Again, the narrator attempts to write her name and the tide comes in and washing it away. The cyclical time of nature is unphased by the humans linear time actions.
Central to the issue is the role of decay. In nature decay is inevitable, but renewal and rebirth are also. For the human, decay leads to a finite ending. The “vain man” attempts to transcend time in order to overcome death. The woman points out that like the writing washed away by the tide she “shall like to this decay.” The narrator though is intent on immortality. He does so by making her “live by fame” in his writing. In writing of the woman and their love they live on once they’re dead. But is this true transcendence or just a deferment of death?
The poem ends with a heroic couplet explaining how their “love shall live, and later life renew.” The use of the heroic couplet is integral to the understanding of the ending of the poem. The OED defines heroic as “admirable for great qualities or achievements,” in this case the narrator’s attempt at transcendence is admirable. The irony is that the use of the couplet creates a finite end similar to that of human death as the end of linear time. Though admirable in his attempt, the narrator is not successful in his mission. A poem is not capable of renewing life, nor is that true transcendence, but rather a shift to a cyclical time frame. A poem is only capable of pseudo-transcendence when there is an audience. Line one of the couplet implies that even when humans are no more the poem will live on. Does a poem really have power if there is no one to read it? Poetry is just one frail attempt at evading the inevitable mortality and ending of human life within a linear time frame.
Another example of attempted transcendence is through empire. History can be told as a successive line empires rising and falling. “Ozymandias” by Percy Shelley succinctly expresses the futility of rules attempting to transcend time by empire. The poem begins “I met a traveller from an antique land/ Who said:” This is integral to the explication because it is not the narrator themself who sees the “two vast and trunkless legs of stone” standing in the desert. Rather, the poem is a third-hand account of this vision-- that’s what remains of Ozymandias’ empire, stories and ruins. This is reiterated by the irony of the stone’s inscription. “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!” This inscription highlights Ozymandias’ vanity when juxtaposed against the “boundless and bare” desert surrounding it.
Just like the narrator in Sonnet 75, Ozymandias is marked by both vanity and decay. Both try to cheat death via writing and artistic creation. Their vanity leads them to believe that they are worth remembering, but nature is indifferent to them. Water washes away sand and sand continues to erode rock. Eventually both the narrator and the king fall prey to death, but their mark continues… until they do not. The poem, as discussed, is only given power as long as it is read and Ozymandias is only remembered so long as lore circulates and the statue stands. Eventually, both will lose their power and decay will reign superior to the linear man’s attempt to defy it.
The nature of time is a funny thing. While humans insist on their linear construct of time, nature operates within a cyclical structure indifferent to the beginning and end of human time. In order to evade the ending of time, humans devise means of transcendence via creation, such as poetry or empire. This is a lofty and impossible goal for cyclical time, the true and superior time, prevents it. The lasting irony is that despite the human rejection of cyclical time, upon death they are integrated into the cycle. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Sources:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/poem/2012/05/_almost_autumn_by_angie_estes_.html
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/guide/238972#poem
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/amoretti75.html
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/86302?rskey=IJKWbM&result=1&isAdvanced=false#eid
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