When reading a poem, the first thing that comes to mind is the obvious. This poem is obviously about two persons walking through trees. One ducks under a fallen tree trunk, straightens up too soon, and bangs his balding head. A quick vignette. A slight miscalculation. A small head wound. A lesson learned.
This hypothetical event is metaphoric, not biographic, although this kind of accident happens. It has happened to me. But in this case, since this is a poem and not a complaint, one would conclude this is more than a report on banging one’s head. This is a metaphor for the human habit of valuing things described as HIGH and devaluing things described as LOW. We take the high road. Heaven is up. We look up to certain people. We try to avoid being down in the dumps, down in the mouth, downhearted, downcast. Feeling upbeat is much better. We can all agree on that. But sometimes life brings us low. When that happens we are tempted to take a pill, take a drink, smoke a joint, binge-watch tv. We want to quickly rise up from being down.
Life is a teeter-totter. It has its ups and downs. At times we experience the dark valley, at times we have a mountaintop experience. This poem stirs up the question, when I am brought low what can I learn that will be of value? Paying attention. Taking care. Having sympathy and compassion. Finding the best words to speak to a person in pain. These are a few of the things we can learn when low.
The metaphoric bang on the head reminds us of the value of staying low just a little bit longer.