The Cardinal In The Birdbath By Gail Kredenser Mack

Allowing yourself to stop and smell the roses occasionally can be beneficial because you often gain insight and knowledge of something from a different perspective. In “The Cardinal in the Birdbath” by Gail Kredenser Mack, a speaker, presumably a woman is watching and observing a cardinal that is in a birdbath. However, beyond the literal cardinal watching, is a speaker who has significantly changed her view on life, especially towards her job, and has realized how another person, in the case a cardinal, has affected her, all because of something simple such as a cardinal playing in a birdbath. Mack employs diction and imagery to convey how the speaker taking a respite from her mundane routines leads to her gaining insight on her life from …show more content…
The image of “dishes were waiting” indicates that the dishes had been there for a significant amount of time and have been waiting to be cleaned and washed by the speaker. With this information, the reader can conclude that the speaker is the type of person who sees washing dishes as dreadful rather than rewarding like some optimists might say who feel proud and accomplished that the dishes have been cleaned and washed. The speaker, seemingly trying to avoid the dishes at all costs, notices that “a cardinal stopped by the birdbath” and seizes this opportunity to postpone the dishes and allow herself to take a break from her obligation. The cardinal arriving introduces a new and unknown perspective to the reader on life. Mack purposefully formats and manipulates the poem to resemble a birdbath and a baptismal font to hint the impending baptism and to show how the birdbath looks to the reader from the speaker’s eyes. Essentially the cardinal is baptized when he “[bopped] his bright head” and was later “cleansed of worldly dust.” He initially was reluctant about the birdbath and his job of cleaning himself because he started out “[hopping] as if to test the water with a toe”, but