This poem is for my wife.
I have made it plainly and honestly:
The mark is on it
Like the burl on the knife.

I have not made it for praise.
She has no more need for praise
Than summer has
Or the bright days.

In all that becomes a woman
Her words and her ways are beautiful:
Love’s lovely duty,
the well-swept room.

Wherever she is there is sun
And time and a sweet air:
Peace is there,
Work done.

There are always curtains and flowers
And candles and baked bread
And a cloth spread
And a clean house.

Her voice when she sings is a voice
At dawn by a freshening spring
Where the wave leaps in the wind
And rejoices.

Wherever she is it is now.
It is here where the apples are:
Here in the stars,
In the quick hour.

The greatest and richest good,
My own life to live in,
This she has given me —

If giver could.

Analysis, meaning and summary of Archibald MacLeish's poem Poem in Prose

1 Comment

  1. Brandon says:

    Wow, this is a weird poem, because there is not that many things in ths poem that make sense. Prose in the dicitonary means “writting without meaning or structured comments”The first stanza’s are about his wife and his relationship also.and prase and shiny days.

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