18 pages • 36 minutes read
To Return To The Trees
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Symbols & Motifs
Trees
As a poetic symbol, trees often correspond to aging and the passage of chronological time. In “To Return to the Trees,” Walcott uses the “unwincing” (Line 3) sea-almond and the “burly oak” (Line 8) as models for types of aging, but he also uses them as representatives of the European and West Indian traditions present throughout this poem and within his wider work. Adjectives for humans and trees mix in multiple instances: the “geriatric” grove of trees in Line 4 and the “gnarled poet” in Line 13 trade moods in their adjectives. Later, the philosopher Seneca’s language also manifests as “gnarled’ (Line 44) and as a “broken bark” (Line 46), the play on words including the physical tree covering and the sound of clipped speech. Lines 49 and 50 embody the opening metaphor of the wise old man as a tree, giving the “senex” two eyes (Line 49) in “the boles of this tree” (Line 50).
Grey
Walcott redefines the color grey in “To Return to the Trees,” establishing it as a symbol of power, beauty, and peace. He elevates its status from a “neutral” color (Line 22), a lackluster version of white (“…the dirty flag / of courage going under” Lines 23-24) to one of dimension and grace. This grey shows off layers of variation like quartz or crystal, though the poet’s diction gestures at the assumed role of grey when describing the tones as “various as boredom” (Line 27) and as “a dull diamond” (Line 29). The alliterative and sparkling “stone-dusted and stoic” continues to relate grey with the poem’s rock and stone natural imagery, eventually connecting it to the “heavy rock of the world” (Line 39) on Atlas’s shoulders. Grey—and by extension, the neutrality that becomes wisdom itself—represents “the heart at peace” (Line 31) and “the toil that is balance” (Line 43). Immune to “factions” (Line 33), the grey of age assimilates and sees across time, “beyond joy” (Line 51) and beyond language.
Rocks and Stones
The most dominant natural images in “To Return to the Trees” include the trees themselves, the rocks in the terrain the speaker inhabits, and the metaphors he creates. The speaker looks to Morne Coco Mountain first; at the mountain, where he watches the “flagrant sunrise” (Line 19), he first identifies the “grey” that “has grown strong to me” (Line 21) in the “ashen end” (Line 20) of sunrise in the sky. He also identifies it in the grey of the mountain, which is the “quartz” in Line 26. To embody both the strength and the material nature of grey, the speaker brings up other stony images: “crystal / haze” (Lines 28-29), “dull diamond” (Line 29), and “stone-dusted” (Line 30). Describing the rocky image as “stoic” connects Seneca, coming in Line 44, to the hardness and power of rocks and stone. The earth itself manifests as “the heavy rock of the world” (Line 39) balanced on Atlas’s shoulder. As much weight and emphasis as these grey rock images bring to the poem, the sand ends the imagery, covering all images and language in time.
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By Derek Walcott
