A Deers Fate

The two poems I have decided to analyze for my blog are “Salt Lick” by May Sarton and “Highway 12, Just East Of Paradise, Idaho” by Robert Wrigley. These two poems to me seemed very odd and cruel. They both seem to be about death and one witnessing a horrible scene of death.

Robert Wrigley describes a horrible and gruesome scene of a deer getting hit by a car. He managed to get almost every detail in the scene. I imagine the poor deer getting hit and dying and made me upset and at one point I had to stop reading the poem because it disturbed me very much. It said “she skated / many yards on the slightest toe-edge tips…” (Wrigley 7-8) The person observing this scene was probably driving or could have been the driver who hit the deer. Seeing a scene like that for me had to leave an impact on you on how your alive one moment and gone the next.

In the other poem I read, May Sarton writes about how deer come to lick salt rock and how sometimes bread is given to them and the deer don’t seem to be afraid of who is there watching them. This poem was still talking about death towards the end but not as horrifying as the poem by Robert Wrigley. In “Salt Lick” the author wonders what would become of the deer when there is no more salt, the salt is an important nutrient for their survival she says, “To fill their need” (Sarton 12) not getting  the necessary nutrients cause a deer to get sick and die. The author compares to her life that like salt one day she is not going to exist she wrote “On some cold winter day / I shall be licked away” (14-15).

            The two poems have a different way of describing death. They both describe it as sudden and without notice. Wrigley is more detailed about the death of the animal and goes on to say “Her neck caught a sign post / that spun her across both lanes and out of sight” (Wrigley 15-16) he even states “I admit I was grateful” (17) this statement made me think he enjoyed witnessing the act of death or maybe, he was just glad the deer died and didn’t land on the street to get ran over by other vehicles. In salt lick May Sarton describes death in her poem as un noticed and with no fault. She states that “the salt, a mystery, / the written word” ( Sarton 6-7) what I understand from that is that the word has another meaning to her. The words in SALT if switched can make a new word LAST. The deer both had to have salt for their diet and at some point would be their last.

When you read poems you can understand them in your own way. Right or wrong it is your own perspective of understanding it and to me these two poems were hard and I admit I had to read them over and over.