A Marxist approach to Rita Dove’s poem ‘Parsley’

B412011



Parsley By Rita Dove

1. The Cane Fields


There is a parrot imitating spring
in the palace, its feathers parsley green.
Out of the swamp the cane appears


to haunt us, and we cut it down. El General
searches for a word; he is all the world
there is. Like a parrot imitating spring,


we lie down screaming as rain punches through
and we come up green. We cannot speak an R—
out of the swamp, the cane appears


and then the mountain we call in whispersKatalina.
The children gnaw their teeth to arrowheads.
There is a parrot imitating spring.


El General has found his word:perejil.
Who says it, lives. He laughs, teeth shining
out of the swamp. The cane appears

in our dreams, lashed by wind and streaming.
And we lie down. For every drop of blood
there is a parrot imitating spring.
Out of the swamp the cane appears.



2. The Palace


The word the general’s chosen is parsley.
It is fall, when thoughts turn
to love and death; the general thinks
of his mother, how she died in the fall
and he planted her walking cane at the grave
and it flowered, each spring stolidly forming
four-star blossoms. The general

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