The Vow

by Galway Kinnell p. 302

This is a short poem. One stanza. One sentence: "When the lover / goes, the vow though / broken remains, that / trace of eternity love / brings down among us / stays, to give / dignity to the suffering / and to intensify it." The line breaks are interesting because you definitely can read the phrases within the lines in different ways. For example, "the vow though broken remains" is a phrase but is chopped up into "broken remains." That has to be intentional. It makes you think of the broken remains of the vow or the relationship or the person who has been left. This is a lovely way to look at love and how something stays behind after the relationship has ended. Something eternal is there. It makes the suffering seem more meaningful. I think this poem sounds soft, if that makes sense. The consonents are mostly soft ones: l, v, th, br, r, d, s. Maybe he uses these sounds because he is talking about love, or because it is abstract concepts that he is discussing.