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Ode to Me - Analysis

Ode to Me

I received a few emails voicing  concerns about the last line of my poem ... spread my wings and die


Lets have look at the date, it is the year 2008,  as it is important to understand my frame of mind when I wrote this poem.

In this Ode to Me, I begin by acknowledging that I am a strong woman and a free spirit. And then I continue to realize that I am about to, need to, change... 'spreading my wings and fly'

After the first year of mourning my husbands passing it was time to leave the 'old' me behind, leaving behind the boundaries of a relationship and spread my winds...to die, which is really more of a metaphor.


In order to spread my wings I need to leave something/someone behind and that in itself is a death. There is a lyric of a German song that just came to mind: Good bye is a little bit like dying...
And there were a lot of Good Byes in 2007/2008 for me.


The passing of my husband of 25 years, scattering his ashes, the selling of my house and everything in it, leaving South Africa, my sons and my dogs behind, even if only for a short period and then  later leaving the country of my birth for good in order to return to South Africa again.


All those 'letting goes' were little deaths. But at the end I emerged, a new me, a stronger me, a me that had found herself.

It is my hope that if you feel like dying right now, that this poem and my explaination above, gives you the hope and courage to continue, to let go and in the end resurrect like the Phoenix out of the Ashes!



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