Poetry Precis #12" "Before She Died"

In “Before She Died,” Karen Chase uses a wistful tone to convey the feeling of distance and yearning for a lost loved one by using contrast. The title of the pom is “Before She Died,” yet the actual poem describes what life was like after she died, helping to differentiate between these two stages of life, before and after. The speaker says “When I look at the sky now, I look at it for you,” showing the difference in the speaker’s purpose now that their loved one has passed. In the second stanza the speaker describes the time setting by saying, “With all the leaves gone almost from the trees,” showing that after the person died, everything around the speaker died as well, contrasting from what life must have been like before the person died. Finally, in the last stanza the speaker says, “It will take a long time to know how it is for you,” because now that the person has died, there is such a vast distance between them and it is hard to connect with them after they have died. Chase’s use of contrast to separate the speaker and the person who has passed away, as well as to contrast between life before and after the death signifies the sense of longing and distance from those close to us who die.