Telephone , The Analysis

'When I was just as far as I could walk
From here today,
There was an hour
All still
When leaning with my head again a flower
I heard you talk.
Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say--
You spoke from that flower on the window sill-
Do you remember what it was you said?'

'First tell me what it was you thought you heard.'

'Having found the flower and driven a bee away,
I leaned on my head
And holding by the stalk,
I listened and I thought I caught the word--
What was it? Did you call me by my name?
Or did you say--
Someone said "Come" -- I heard it as I bowed.'

'I may have thought as much, but not aloud.'

"Well, so I came.'

.: Analysis :.

I must say, despite that it's confusing, it is a truly heart-borne poem. I'll have to be honest... It's kinda weird reading a poem about a guy who's talking to a FLOWER (In my views anyway), but for it's theme... Yes, it is about love, though I argue with myself that the actual theme might be about 'miracle'. In my view, Sir Robert Frost is expressing the small miraculous moments that happen in life VIA nature, as most of his poems are based on. I should know, because when I read this poem, I remembered something similar happened to me.

I was with my closest friend on an aeroplane once, and we got separate seats due to high season when we went back to Japan from Germany. I fell asleep, and I swore I heard her voice call my name, and I woke up because of it. It turned out that one of the flight attendants was serving our dinner, and she was only two seats away from mine. I haven't eaten for the whole day, and the meal they served was the first after 28 hours I had. When I asked her, she said that she was thinking about my condition at that exact same time.

Back to the poem. Based on this experience, I'm thinking that the speaker of the poem had a loved one, and through one those moments, the speaker heard her/his voice through the flower he was holding telling the 'speaker' to come. The second last stanza (poem's paragraph) switches to the voice of the speaker's loved one, who stated that he/she have thought about it, but did not say it out loud. This poem conveys the bond of people of close relationships, how their care and respect (Added with love if you wish) could reach out to each other. The flower, I think, symbolises human nature.


| Posted on 2005-06-08 | by Approved Guest