In the poem "Slowly" by Danna Masini I found a intriguing but mysterious poem that at first confused me but once I read it countless times I finally think I have a interpretation of what the poem actually was meaning and comparing it to. I found the title of the poem confusing me because it is only one word "Slowly" this means moving or proceeding with less than normal speed normally you would think of a car moving slowly but it can also mean the slow struggle through life until death. Why would the poet name the poem something so vague but yet so powerful in some instances.
The poem explains about how a snake slowly but instinctively eats a rabbit which made me annoyed a little bit for thinking of animals dying but I slowly through this poem knew more and more that it is just life that we have to get through. " All throat that snake - I couldn't tell where the throat ended, the body began." (7-9) this part of the poem was more interesting because if you think about it just like a snake as a child you do not know where the throat ended or began because it was so long, compared to a life no one knows where it will begin or end for anyone it could be a long road or a short road:to live or to die. There is a few parts that are disturbing to me but it also is the thought of snakes attacking other prey to survive that also interest but disturbs me because no matter what you have to kill to live that is what every organism consist of.
At first in this poem I thought that it was just telling a story of a student watching as a snake devours a rabbit in front of them but reading it multiple times I got less confused but it really amazed me once I read the ending of this poem " I am taking this in, slowly, taking it into my body: this grief. How slow the body is to realize. You are never coming back" (23-27). I was confused at first because I thought this child was just in shock that she saw the snake eat a rabbit whole but then I read the title and realized that maybe it was not just about this but it was the life itself the poet was talking about. She compared a persons life ending to a snake eating its prey throughout this whole poem. The ending of the poem was to say once you realize something bad is happening to us like a disease or just growing old we do not realize how precious our life is until the very end at which we reflect on ourselves. Once we are in that stage of our life we are slowly dying everyday just like a snake is slowly eating the rabbit the rabbit is slowly dying on the inside. We just do not realize that it can happen in a second.
Your insights are fascinating. One point I would add is that the narrator—as an adult—is equating the memory of watching the snake swallow the rabbit to her apparently recent experience of losing someone close to her, presumably a lover or spouse. Like the snake swallowing the rabbit, the narrator is trying to absorb her own grief.
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