eden rock

• her hair the colour of wheat takes on the light 


  • angelic imagery: idolises
• the sky whitens as if lit by three suns 


  • suns can be seen as a representation of the trinity, symbolic of purity + hope
• they beckon to me from the other bank


  • third person plural distances parents + speaker
  • "beckon" relates to temptation and persusasion , refrencing uniting with family is an embrace
• crossing is not as hard as you think 


  • into the afterlife? refrence to a journey, crossing between time periods or generational divide, or simply diffrent locations
  • causley questions the process of death
• i had not thought it would be like this

  • last line seperate from other stanzas symbolizing speakers seperation from parents
• structure 


  • use of exclamations throughout: excitment juxtaposes morose tone of poem
  • fixed structure of quatrains until final line, iambic pentameter emphasises stability, stream refrenced throughout could be river styx (mythically where people cross to after life)
  • half rhyme symbolises incomplete aspect of relationship, also creates a tone of immediacy as full rhyme would be too jovial
• form


  • nostalgic lanuage: use of colloquialisms such as "genuine irish tweed" creates sense of nostalgia + rememberence for parents
  • natural imagery: death is inevitable, alternatively love transcends death