Emplumada

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1981

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

The Flowers of Summer

The first stanza of Lorna Dee Cervantes’ poem “Emplumada” is written in the past tense. The speaker is telling a story set in time at the end of summer, as the flowers are dying. The specific flower in question is the snapdragon, a showy, spiky, colorful plant that is technically a perennial—a plant that returns every year—but is generally grown as an annual—a plant that must be replanted every year. On gardening websites, the snapdragon is referred to as a “short-lived perennial.” Its name comes from the way its petals, when squeezed by the “throat,” snap open to resemble what someone imagined to be dragon mouths.

At the beginning of the poem, the flowers are all but dead. They were “born when the weather was good” (Line 8). In spring and early summer, although there is an intellectual awareness that fall and winter will come, the cold seasons can seem very far away. Likewise, when a child is born, the decay of age seems far away, as do the burdens of living that the child will take on as she grows. The observer in the poem “hated to see / them go” (Lines 6-7), these flowers of summer, as their exit ushers in the chill that comes after the growing season.

The Solemnity of Birds

The hummingbird is small, and sometimes colorful, and could be reduced to a creature that is sweet and cute, if it weren’t for its innate fierceness. Birds are serious creatures, descended from meat-eating dinosaurs. In “Emplumada,” the poet captures the solemnity of birds—and in flight, no less. In the second stanza, they hover, and are “stuck to each other, / arcing their bodies in grim determination” (Lines 11-12). If they are having sex, it is no light-hearted frolic; it is as desperate and focused pursuit as it would be if they were in combat with one another. They must “find what is good, what is / given to them” (Lines 13-14). Whether they are searching for food or procreating, time is not on their side. There is only so much nectar, and they must compete with other hummingbirds to get it. At a heartbeat of 1200 beats a minute in flight, a hummingbird can only hover, stuck to another, for so long.

As difficult as life may be for a hummingbird, they can fly. “[W]arriors” (Line 14), yes, but sky fighters who “find peace / in the way they contain the wind” (Line 17). In a way, as the last dinosaurs, birds continue to distance “themselves from history” (Line 15), simply through their ability to fly away and live.

Containing the Wind

The difference between containing the wind and harnessing the wind or being beaten down by the wind is a difference of power and perspective. A bird uses the wind to fly, finding ways to position its wings to take advantage of or resist air currents. In Cervantes’ poem “Emplumada,” the feathered creatures “contain the wind” (Line 17) in a way a canoe paddle passes through the water—moving through it, using its resistance to propel the body of the boat forward but without significantly changing the water or altering its course. One can envision the wing, as well, as the cupped palm of a swimmer.

In the context of the poem, “history” (Line 15) seems not to refer to a natural history of the earth but to human history. The birds in the air “distancing themselves” (line 15) from the human endeavor on the ground are able to move above, and eventually absent themselves from, the drama below. As a metaphor for writing, if the feather of a wing is the pen, the wind it contains can be language itself. How the poet navigates language becomes a matter of scale and impact, ranging from summer breeze to tornado.