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Planting a Sequoia1

All afternoon my brothers and I have worked in the orchard,Digging this hole, laying you into it, carefully packing the soil.

Rain blackened the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific,

And the sky above us stayed the dull grayf an old year coming to an end.

In !icily a father plants a tree to celebrate his first son"s birth #An olive or a fig tree # a sign that the earth has one more life to bear.

I would have done the same, proudly laying new stock into my father"s orchard,

A green sapling rising among the twisted apple boughs,

A promise of new fruit in other autumns.

$ut today we kneel in the cold planting you, our native giant,

Defying the practical custom of our fathers,

%rapping in your roots a lock of hair, a piece of an infant"s birth cord,All that remains above earth of a first#born son,

A few stray atoms brought back to the elements.

%e will give you what we can # our labor and our soil,

%ater drawn from the earth when the skies fail,&ights scented with the ocean fog, days softened by the circuit of bees.

%e plant you in the corner of the grove, bathed in western light,

A slender shoot against the sunset.

And when our family is no more, all of his unborn brothers dead,

'very niece and nephew scattered, the house torn down,(is mother"s beauty ashes in the air,I want you to stand among strangers, all young and ephemeral to you,

!ilently keeping the secret of your birth.

Dana Gioia

)a huge coniferous tree in *alifornia, often known as a giant redwood

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*ommentary+ he unity of man and nature

he cycle of life re-uires both human and nature"s input. A tree cannot grow even with the helpof the 'arth"s natural resources, water and light, without man initially planting the seed. he

poem Planting a !e-uoia written by Dana /ioia unites man and nature. he death of a man

becomes the birth of tree.

*reating a grave and planting a tree re-uires the same action, digging a hole. he first stanza of

the poem introduces a person, the narrator, digging 0hole, laying you into it, carefully packingthe soil1. his refers to both planting a tree, and burying a man. he weather is dark and cold

which introduces a sad and harsh tone to the poem. he narrator than continues describes a

tradition in !icily, where planting of a tree represents the birth of a child, because the earth has

one more life to bear. he narrator claims that he would have followed this tradition. (oweverinstead he is in the cold on his knees planting the se-uoia, the native tree of *alifornia. %ith the

tree he plants a lock of hair and an infant"s umbilical cord. nly now in the middle of the poem

does the narrator e2press that he is burying his son and reconnecting him with the elements of

nature. After the planting of the reader is told how nature and man will work together to raise thistree. he men will give labour and soil while nature provides water and light. his tree will live

longer than any of the family members and forever stand among strangers.

3nlike the life of a tree, human life is not forever. (owever, through the simple act of planting a

tree a person"s life is forever remembered. A father is burying his first#born son. $y burying hairand the umbilical cord with the tree, the tree becomes the son. his unification of man and nature

becomes the pattern and running theme through the poem. he unification is presented through

personification. he literal meaning of the poem, the tree, is referred to throughout the poem as

you. his creates a human connotation and establishes a personal relationship between thefigurative you, represented in the tree, and the speaker. his supports the idea of a father burying

his son.

Death is natural. hroughout this poem the natural theme is supported through natural imagery,

Rain blackened the horizon, &ights scented with the ocean fog, and days softened by the

circuit of bees. (owever, a father burying his son is unnatural. 3nnatural imagery, like %eplant you in the corner of the grave, Digging this hole, packing the soil and %e will give

you ... %ater drawn from the earth when the skies fail supports the unnatural tragic event of a

child dying before his father. he death of a child is the reason the father is Defying the

practical custom of our fathers. (e is going against tradition like nature has gone against thetradition of a father dying before his son.

he pain, sadness, and grief for the tragic death of a son is represented within the imagery of thefirst stanza in the poem. he dark and cold weather sets a gloomy tone to the poem. his creates

an e2pectation within the reader for a dark and sad poem. his e2pectation is supported by the

alliteration of the harsh k sound. his is an unpleasant sound which provokes feelings of painand hurt. (owever within the first sentence a reference to orchard is made. rchard has the

connotation of beauty, life and growth. owards the end of the first stanza there is the

foreshadowing of rain4 however the cold winds kept it over the Pacific, and the sky above us

stayed the dull gray. here was a natural force which kept the rain away. he tree is the natural

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force which reduces the mourning for the death of the child. he mourning and tragic grief is

replaced by the tree, which represent life, beauty and growth like the orchard. here is a sense of

hope as well as sadness which rises within the poem from the first stanza.

$irth, A promise of new fruit in other autumns, also provides a sense of hope in life. herefore

within the poem an allusion to another culture and tradition is made. his comparison shows howa tradition which creates hope for a 5oyful event has been used to change grief into hope and a

celebration of life, not to those who are new to life but for those who will be remembered for

their life and have died. he difference between the boy who has died and the newborn baby issymbolized through the use of different trees. he dead boy is represented as a giant native

se-uoia. his tree represents age, e2perience, strength, development and beauty, all the aspects

which a green sapling or apple boughs still need to develop 5ust like newborn babies.

%hile the native giant se-uoia stands tall and strong, the rest of the family is going to be

scattered in the air when they die. he tree will forever be

a representation of the dead son. his death was the reason the tree was born. (owever the last

line of the poem, !ilently keeping the secret of your birth, indicates that the reason for the treeand the actual planting of the se-uoia was the intimate and private moment for the father in order

to be at peace with the death of his son. herefore it was a secret and shall remain a secret. he-uiet alliteration of the sound s provides a sense of calmness which closes the poem with a

tone and mood of serenity and rest. he secret of the birth of the tree will always remain between

the father and the tree. herefore the relationship between father and son will remain forever.

&ot only does the poem show a relationship between nature and man but also between father and

son. his is evident through the structure of the poem. he lack of rhythm and rhyme presents

the poem as a private monologue from a father to his son. he reader is invited to listen ande2perience the unification of a man and nature as well as the everlasting tie between father and

son.

he father created a way to have the memory of his son live on forever. $y planting a tree man

and nature worked together to create life. hrough the use of natural and unnatural imagery,

personification, diction and symbolism man and nature were unified within this poem. 'itherthrough having a symbolic tree, being buried or scattered everyone unifies with nature after

death. his is the natural cycle of life.

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'2aminer6s comments+

his commentary contains e2amples of two common faults. he first is a tendency for students to start

writing before they have really understood the poem, but then to gradually arrive at a better interpretation

as they write. he second is to make an overall interpretation and then to maintain it without further

-uestioning. Perhaps this accounts for the fact that this literary analysis contains a mi2ture of perceptive and

slightly off#beat interpretations.

he first sentence is not promising. Is it even true7 rees grew long before human beings arrived on earth.

Is it relevant to the poet"s message7 nly to a certain e2tent. Also, the poem is about the death of a child,

not a man.

he second paragraph, however, gives a satisfactory outline of what happens in the poem, while the third

paragraph discusses the ambiguity of %e will give you what we can where the you is both the child

and the tree.

here is some confusion between the meanings of natural, unnatural and nature, and the e2amples

of unnatural imagery are not e2plained convincingly. It is not unnatural to dig a hole e2cept in this

particular situation. It is against tradition to plant a tree for a dead child, 5ust as it is against tradition andnature for a child to die before his father4 but can these events be called unnatural or 5ust unusual7

In writing about this, the student mis-uotes grove as grave in paragraph 8.

he discussion of the effects of the weather on the tone is valid, as is the significance of the use of the

se-uoia to represent the dead child. 3nfortunately, the language and synta2 used in paragraphs 9 and :

tends to obscure rather than clarify what the student is trying to say. he ne2t paragraph, beginning

%hile the "native giant" se-uoia ... , is very good as the student shows that he has grasped the central

idea of the poem. It is a pity that at the end, the commentary reverts to the earlier idea of the poem being

about the unification of man and nature. his is a patchy performance which is sometimes marred by

faulty and confusing writing.