Summary Of The Poem A Telephone Line Goes Cold/Birds No Farm

This poem dramatizes the conflict between a blind man and his memories that are nothing more than just that. The speaker of this poem, calls a farm every year hoping that someday someone will answer on the other side. However, “the line gives only a hum”. (line 8) Eventually someone answers, but it is all just in his head. He admits that there is “no space, no birds, no farm”. (24) The speaker wants for someone to be there at the farm, but “both ends will be home” (23) and it will all be just wishful thinking. In just the first stanza, the reader can clearly see the details of the farm the speaker is talking about. It starts out by saying, “A telephone line goes cold/ birds tread it wherever it goes”. (1-2) A vivid image is painted of a line that does not have a reply on the other end, but it is still there. The reader may even see the farm as a run down place from the description of the birds treading the line. This is because birds on lines are often referred to areas that are old or sometimes even haunted.. “A farm back of a great plain/tugs an end of the line”. (3-4) Here the farm is described as being in a field and that is where the end of the line is. In stanza two, it is stressed that the speaker “calls that farm every year”. (5) “Ringing it. Listening, still”. (6) From this sentence, …show more content…
(25) Right here, he continues to come to the realization that the only thing left of the farm is in the past. A metaphor is then used to compare himself to the gray color of winter and a post when the speaker says, “wise as winter is gray/ pure as cold posts go”. (26-27) From these sentences, the reader can better understand how the speaker feels about this situation. “Pacing toward what I know”. (28) Even though no one is there for him at the farm and there is no response on the other end of the line, the speaker has to keep this memory to keep himself moving forward. Without it, he would be