"Traveling through the Dark" reflection

                The poem that caught my attention was “Traveling through the Dark” by William E. Stafford. I thought it was interesting how at first he says that …”it is usually best to roll them into the cannon”, but she decides to push her into the river. I think that the significance of this is that a river is a much gentler place to be. I think that once he realized that a fawn was in the picture, he took a much more caring approach. He also switches the action from “roll” to “push” in order to care for the baby. I thought it was interesting how he says: “…I could hear the wilderness listen” as if the wilderness was a person--ordinarily it would be the other way around. I also was drawn to the meaning of swerving in this poem. In the first mention of the word swerve in the first stanza, I didn’t think much of it aside from its literal meaning. However, when the word was mentioned again in the last stanza: “I thought hard for us all—my only swerving”, it made me think that perhaps swerving held more significance than I initially thought. I think that to swerve in the second instance symbolizes his thought process of going back and forth; pondering on what he should do with the doe. After reading this poem, the second to last line stuck in my head: “I thought hard for us all”. I thought it was touching how he subtly acknowledges the fact that the fawn was important and had been alive enough to be included as someone just as the doe and the author himself.