Analysis of Lifeguard
LIFEGUARD
A city park.
A little girl drops her ice cream cone on the grass,
Falling to her knees while reaching out with sticky fingers to rescue her strawberry treat.
An old man plays chess with his grandson near the trees,
Nodding with admiration as the young boy finds his way through the shadow of the forest
The two shy loners who met near the snack bar while escaping the rain last week,
Today stroll hand in hand in the sunshine, their eyes darting from the ground to the sky.
The war veteran, just back from the Middle East in body, not mind,
Finds the sleep in the shade of an oak tree he couldn't locate in the darkness of a hotel bedroom.
A middle-aged woman jogs through the park,
Racing away from the years as hopelessly as her legs will allow.
A young man operating a recycling truck unloads his last plastic container,
And sits on the park's grass as he lights his own.
A survey taker sobs at a picnic table, the newspaper's job section open in front of her,
Her first day asking questions having been her worst day on earth.
Two squirrels, one large and the other tiny,
Argue with one another in the trees over affairs of their day,
And as I survey this scene from my park bench beside the river bank,
The cell phone in my hand buzzes with incessant determination,
Intent on drowning me in the digital chaos strangling the planet,
I am about to choke.
So I close my eyes,
But the sound of a splash in the distance opens them again.
The phone is gone.
The squirrels stop fighting and serenade me from the trees.
Amen.
LAWRENCE LANNOO
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJBKLMLNOPQRSTUVWEVM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1 0101 010110111101 101011101110101100101 11111111101 10101010111111011010 0111011101110100111 0111010011110101101 01100111010101011 10100111111101001010011 0101101101 10011011100101101 011100001001011110010 01101111111 00110110110010110100110 011101010101111 11011001010 10110100011001111 01101111111010101 0110111010100010 0111010010010100010 110111 11111 101101001010101 0111 0101100011101 01 101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,556 |
Words | 313 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 28 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 44 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,227 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 289 |
About this poem
Sat in the park one day after a difficult business meeting and discovered some peace the outside world would not entertain, never mind provide.
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"Lifeguard" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/133503/lifeguard>.
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