_## ‘The heron walks in the marsh’_ taken from her collection entitled _Pencil Letter_. The heron walks in the marsh Its legs like a pair of compasses. The cold, like a greenish shadow, Lies upon the forest. The air, dense and grey, Itself lies down under its wing. Above is the twilit sky, Below, a network of plants. Who is playing there with the wind? Who, altering his voice, Has called from the forest, But has not ventured forth? A ray of forgotten light Gingerly tests the water. Now our endless evening Has gone off on its circular course. Beasts, people and birds, And voices, and specks of light – We pass through all like ripples, And each one disappears. Which of us will recur? Who will flow into whom? What do we need in this world To quench our thirst? IRINA RATUSHINSKAYA # Explanation This poem by Irina Ratushinskaya is a beautiful and meditative piece that moves from a precise, almost painterly observation of nature into a profound philosophical meditation on existence, identity, and transience. Let's break it down stanza by stanza. Part 1: The Still Life (Stanzas 1-3) The opening is a masterclass in imagery. It sets a specific, cool, and quiet scene. · "The heron walks in the marsh / Its legs like a pair of compasses." This is a precise, almost mechanical simile. It gives us a clear, sharp image of the heron's deliberate, measuring step. The heron isn't just standing; it's walking, moving with purpose through this landscape. · "The cold, like a greenish shadow, / Lies upon the forest." This is synesthetic—mixing senses. Cold is a feeling, but here it's described as a color ("greenish") and a form ("shadow"). It suggests the chill of twilight, the dampness of the marsh seeping into the woods. · "The air, dense and grey, / Itself lies down under its wing." This is a gorgeous and unusual image. It personifies the air, giving it the ability to "lie down" as if seeking shelter. It creates a sense of the atmosphere being so heavy and still that it settles onto the earth, tucking itself away as the day ends. · "Above is the twilit sky, / Below, a network of plants." The poem establishes a clear vertical axis: the world is divided between the fading sky above and the intricate, tangled life of the marsh below. The scene is complete, static, and perfectly observed. Part 2: The Intrusion of Mystery (Stanzas 4-5) This stillness is then broken by an unseen presence, shifting the poem from description to questioning. · "Who is playing there with the wind? / Who, altering his voice, / Has called from the forest, / But has not ventured forth?" The speaker's attention is drawn to the forest's edge. Someone or something is interacting with the wind, mimicking sounds, calling out but remaining hidden. This introduces a sense of mystery and potential. Is it an animal, another person, or a spirit of the woods? The fact that it "has not ventured forth" maintains the boundary between the observer and the observed, the known and the unknown. · "A ray of forgotten light / Gingerly tests the water." This is a return to the visual, but the light is now personified. It's "forgotten" and acts "gingerly," as if it's a timid creature or a memory. It's the last remnant of the sun, tentatively touching the marsh before it disappears entirely. Part 3: The Shift to the Abstract (Stanzas 6-8) With the line "Now our endless evening / Has gone off on its circular course," the poem makes a crucial pivot. The scene is no longer just a scene; it's a metaphor for a state of being. The evening is "endless" and "circular," suggesting a timeless, cyclical experience—perhaps a metaphor for a period of reflection, confinement, or a repetitive internal state. The focus then zooms out from the specific heron and forest to a universal list: · "Beasts, people and birds, / And voices, and specks of light –" The poem catalogs everything that exists: animals, humans, sounds, and the smallest units of perception. And with this, the poem arrives at its core philosophical statement: · "We pass through all like ripples, / And each one disappears." Here, the speaker and the reader are united in a collective "We." Our existence is compared to a ripple on the water—temporary, insubstantial, a brief disturbance on the surface that vanishes without a trace. Everything in the catalog (beasts, people, voices) is also just a ripple that "disappears." This leads to the final, urgent, and unanswerable questions: · "Which of us will recur? / Who will flow into whom?" This asks about continuity and identity. Is there any permanence? Does anything of us survive? The image of "flowing into" one another suggests a merging of identities, a dissolution of the self into a greater whole, perhaps after death. · "What do we need in this world / To quench our thirst?" This is the ultimate question. If everything is transient ("each one disappears"), what can possibly satisfy our deepest longing ("thirst") for meaning, permanence, connection, or understanding? The poem ends on this note, offering no answer, only the profound and haunting question. Overall Interpretation The poem is a journey from the external to the internal, from the concrete to the abstract. It uses the stark, beautiful, and cold image of a heron in a marsh at twilight as a springboard for contemplating the nature of being. · Theme of Transience: The central theme is that all things—from a "ray of light" to human beings—are fleeting "ripples." The cold, still landscape becomes a symbol of an indifferent universe where things simply appear and disappear. · Theme of Observation and Mystery: The speaker is an observer, first of the natural world, then of the existential one. The mysterious presence in the forest ("Who... has called... but has not ventured forth?") could represent the unattainable answers to the questions she later poses. It is the "other" that we sense but can never fully know or grasp. · The "Thirst": The final line is powerful in its simplicity. It suggests a fundamental, unquenchable human need. In the context of the poem, we "thirst" for permanence, for meaning in the face of our own disappearance, for an answer to "which of us will recur." In essence, Ratushinskaya paints a quiet, twilight world and then uses it as a mirror to reflect the profound and unanswerable questions of human existence. The heron's measured walk through the marsh becomes a metaphor for our own measured, but ultimately disappearing, passage through life.