“Stay, I said”. With those three words Jane Hirshfield commands her surroundings as well as her entire body to stay alive in the poem “The Promise”. Hirshfield is literally trying to stop death from occurring all around her. She commands cut flowers to stay alive but they die. She commands a leaf to remain, but it reddens, knowing that it’s impossible to not to. Finally, Hirshfield tries the command on her body. It works for a while, but then her body starts to tremble like it’s ill. She desires to live forever on earth, but her body would only be ending up with the “fossiled escarpments”. Finally, she turns to her last resort: her loved ones. Undeniably, they are the ones who will stay with her forever.
Hirshfield’s poem applies to the world
Hirshfield’s poem applies to the world