Are you smart?

if you are, please help me with this:





What in the world would be the theme to this poem ???








Cripple








Once when I saw a cripple


Gasping slowly his last days with the white plague,


Looking from hollow eyes, calling for air,


Desperately gesturing with wasted hands


In the dark and dust of a house down in a slum,


I said to myself


I would rather have been a tall sunflower


Living in a country garden


Lifting a golden-brown face to the summer,


Rain-washed and dew-misted,


Mixed with the poppies and ranking hollyhocks,


And wonderingly watching night after night


The clear silent processionals of stars.





Carl Sandburg

















Thank you very much in advance.

Are you smart?
To have the chance to dream dreams, or see visions - the theme I suppose would be that of maturity or the lack thereof?





Understanding one's depth of soul or belief system.
Reply:I think this poem reflects the image of our society. We're dissatisfied with the ugly while always dreaming of the beauty.
Reply:Several Literary devices point to the theme of: Life and Death; Degeneration and renewal.





The death is apparent in: Once when I saw a cripple


Gasping slowly his last days with the white plague,


Looking from hollow eyes, calling for air,


Desperately gesturing with wasted hands


In the dark and dust of a house down in a slum,





And after: 'I said to myself' the author uses contrasting ideas which seem to signify renewal or life in contrast to the hopelessness of death and dying.





However, I do think the predominantly occurring theme here is : Death, as even in the second half of the poem, the author makes use of the word: "processionals" ...this sort of diction seems to be directly making a connection to/ reference with 'funerals'....also 'silent' and 'stars' can also be viewed as metaphorical devices used to connote "silence of dead" "silent as a graveyard" and the belief many hold that the dead goes to heave and can be seen to watch over us as 'stars' or 'constellations'