So, with all that said, here is my two cents.

It dawned on me that the reason for that was not so much what the piece was really about but that Camus was a very good writer - like Shakespeare's writing in Hamlet as to why he did what he did? But still, why did this particular poem of hers bring out all these questions, because like you I didn't find this poem as successful as others, but it is more straight forward and easier to draw conclusions from. I remember a graduate class on post colonial Europe, and a small piece written by Camus, really it was three paragraphs, and we had a 45 minute discussion on its meaning, with as many interpretations as students. I'm amazed at how much response this little poem as brought out in people, and the many different interpretations. This is why she says the brook may dry out then. And in the cynicism of old age we lose them entirely. Perhaps this is what she means by snow falling and the bridges being crushed. But perhaps they represent teenage and old age respectively? In our adolescent teen years, our values go through turmoil and change. It's wholly plausible they're references to the climate at that place at that time. I did not understand her references to March.

We hardly live by those ideals anymore so perhaps others wouldn't suspect they were ever there. It would explain why she says no one knows it's there by virtue of it's stillness. To indicate that altough the ideals have been sacrificed, deep down we still allow ourselves a secret visit to them every now and then. That's probably why she says 'draught of life'. Perhaps, in the avalanche of life, these ideals were ignored and tossed aside on the altar of pragmatic necissity.

And then, I thought of another interpretation.īut, for me, the river represents any kind of ideals that may have once held close. I too, was confused, by this poem in the fashion that it begins with the delicious promise of introspection but quickky dwindles away. Your comment on the brook being the source of her poetry and her creativity very insightful.

Poem about a dry brook