tissue

• context - Dharker

  • born 1954
  • born in Pakistan
  • grew up in Glasgow
  • Muslim - describes herself as Scottish Muslim Calvinist - identity comes from multiple sources - not easily defined
• light

  metaphor through out the poem - Religious reference to hope - Jesus and Allah - power of religion
• enjambment

  lack of control

  defies restrictions

  mankind has no power
• 'maps too'

  segregate - divide natural world - man power

  control borders
• their borderlines, the marks that rivers make roads, rail tracks and mountain folds

  list

  man's desire to order / control everything
• fine slips... credit cards'

  metaphor

  buying something

  receipts - man made - money
• like paper kites

  simile

  fragile - easily destroyed - power can easily be destroyed

  flight represents how all power decline
• daylight break

  nature breaks man's power
• capitals and monoliths

  gov buildings

  human power

  nature breaks through human power
• transparent

  see through

  honest

  clear

  those in power need to be honest
• turned into your skin

  single lined stanza - cyclical back to the start

  human power - fragile like skin tissue

  cells in skin tissue die - power will always die