winter swans

• The couple are experiencing a conflict as they walk together.
• 'The clouds had given their all - two days of rain and then a break in which we walked'
• 'Two days of rain' - pathetic fallacy - symbolises their turbulent relationship - nature us advocating and encouraging couples ('two')
• 'the clouds had given their all' - personification - clouds are drained and exhausted mirroring the speaker
• 'which we walked' - alliterating - w sound imitates question words - unresolved issues
• The quote 'the clouds had given their all ect..' - structure - enjambment - ongoing rain - continuous relationship problems
• 'the water logged earth gulping for breath at our feet' - there suffocated and drowning in relationship - struggle to maintain it - the earth is at the bottom of their feet and separated from their body
• ' we skirted the lake, silent and apart' - skirting around each other - could fall in at any moment and there relationship would drown - emotional distance
• 'until the swans came and stopped us with a show of tipping in unison. As if rolling weights down their bodies to their heads'
• 'Until the swans came and stopped us' - conjunction 'until' is the first indication of a shift - nature has intervened - 'us' is an inclusive pronoun - speaker still sees them as a partnership -
• 'with a show of tipping in unison' - the swans are targeting the couple, modelling what is required and juxtaposing the separation in their relationship - simile shows the couple must not be scared of delving deep into their issues
• 'As if rolling weights down their bodies to their heads' - reflects the burden of the relationship, but the swans have learned to deal with it
• 'I noticed out hands that had somehow swum the distance between us'
• 'swum the distance between us' - metaphor - symbolises how emotionally and physically closer they are
• 'I noticed our hands' reconciliation wasn't planned - the swans have inspired this in a natural way
• "I noticed our hands, that had, somehow," - caesura - indicates hesitation - one wrong move could easily end the relationship -
• "like a pair of wings settling after flight" - couple has become a mirror image of the swans in their acceptance for one another - sense of protection - no need to fly away from each other anymore - the relationship has settled - foreshadows that the relationship will last and conflict has resolved
• structure - 6 irregular 3 line stanzas with a couplet at the end - emphasises the disharmony and the conflict in the couple at the beginning - after moment of reconciliation, couplet is symbolic of the coming back together again. Conflict is only temporary
• winter swans is taken from a collection on poems called 'Skirrid hill' which translates to "shattered mountain" and can also be interpreted as "divorce" or "separate" - summing up the key points in the poem