NPPF: CANTO ONE NOTES on behalf of Charles

[Jasper Fidget]

A literal synopsis
 
Not required.........
 
The poem opens with the waxwing hitting the windowpane (some suggest that
the waxwing in question has been picked up by the boy Shade), and a brief
digression about the curious effects of reflection and refraction which
takes the reader from summer (the season when the waxwing gorges on seasonal
berries) to the first snowfall. (lines 1-12)
 
The day of snowfall turns into night, and in the morning a set of tracks are
discovered. They lead "left to right", 
"a dot, and arrow pointing back, repeat:
Dot, arrow pointing back....A pheasant's feet"
This recalls a technique perhaps employed by someone "in Sherlock
Holmes".....(lines 13-28)
 
Shade describes himself as a child with a photographic memory, with a
fascination for colors, "even gray"....(lines 29-40)
 
He comments on his vision, previously so keen, beginning to fail him,
"maybe some quirk in space
has caused a fold or furrow......" (lines 41-48)
 
Shade describes his fondness for a highly articulated hickory. The season
has shifted to spring, Hazel's death is obliquely hinted at - and here come
the butterflies....(lines 49-57)
 
There begins to arise a suggestion that Shade is engaged in a "dialogue"
with Hazel's ghost
"the house itself is much the same", as he describes changes made to it over
the years. The stiff vane "so often visited by the naive" has been replaced
by "TV's huge paperclip" - where the mockingbird now loiters.....(lines
58-70)
 
Shade recounts how he, himself, was an infant when his parents, "both
ornithologists" died. His memory of them is distorted by his inability to
see nothing of them but their "virtues".........[note - the closing couplet
scans - I would say "effectively", but for what appears to be the first time
- it "reads" awkwardly - this is of no  particular importance, only a
curious lapse..cfa] (lines 71-88)
 
The tour, now of the childhood home, continues - we are told of a maid and a
reasonably large immediate family - there is a hint of "papism" in the
blood....(lines 79-85)
 
The 'spinster' aunt , Maud, a poet, artist, and Red Sox fan, is introduced.
Her metier appears to be combining the common with the 'grotesque'. Her room
has been left  "intact".....(lines 86 - 98)
 
Shade is a precocious atheist, with, paradoxically, no faith in "free will"
- a determinist, maybe a fatalist. His love of nature is put in terms
gustatory....(lines 99- 104)
 
He discusses his "sensitivity" to natures abundant colors, its wonders -
while hinting at an outside agency using such to divert "us" from our
confinement. The season has shifted to summer....(lines 105 - 114)
 
Moving on to  fall, the young Shade ponders the "relativity" of time, and
the similarity of its "shape" to the closing wings of a butterfly - its
fatal consequences.....(lines 115-124)
 
Shade contrasts himself with the "vulgarian" who only sees the stars when
micturating. As  a boy, Shade, it seems, only looked up, unable to avoid any
obstacles in his path. He was "asthmatic, lame and fat"  - predictably
unathletic...(lines 125-130)
 
The waxwing episode is recalled, but this time, it is not "false azure", but
"feigned remoteness". He refers to a unique sense (given that he stipulates
to the same five as everyone else enjoys - we must assume that the unique
refers to his "vision"). He dreams " I played with other chaps", but insists
that he never "envied" other boys, except for "the miracle of a lemniscate
left.....by nonchalantly deft bicycle tires...."  [line 139 is broken by
what I would call a caesura  (Elaine - HELP!), the first such in the
poem](lines 131-139)
 
Shade describes a day when he was 11. While playing inside with a
"clockwork toy - a tin wheelbarrow pushed by a  tin boy" he suffers some
form of seizure, defined by a "sudden sunburst" in his head........(lines
139 - 146)
 
The seizure is described. "Time and  place have become confused"......your
correspondent assumes any and all similarities to an LSD, or Psillosybin,
experience are entirely coincidental......(lines 147-156)
 
These "seizures" occurr every day for the course of one winter, and then
disappear. Shade grows healthier and learns how to swim. However, "the
wonder (of these epsiodes) lingers  and the shame remains.....(lines
167-176)
 
 
love,
cfa