The Coming of Light

The Coming of Light
Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.
Mark Strand

Mark Strand's " The coming of light" is a poem which describes the values of light and love through the use of imagery and tone. The poem talks about a love that triggers hope and determination into ones life; the optimistic tone of the poem helps show the reader that mostly with time, when things are often " late" or are " older", they tend to lose their "touch", their significance;but strong love even with time, never fades. With words such as " Even this late" and " the coming of love, the coming of light", Strand explains that even as you grow older, love will still be with you at all times, it just keeps coming. Strand in this poem ,is talking about being born again into love and light. When you are a child you are exposed to different kind of love and a different kind of light, but once you grow older both love and light have different meanings; you are " reborn" into love and light. Light, I believe plays a huge role in defining the deeper meaning of this poem. Once again, here Strand describes light with the use of imagery with relations to natural environment to give a better understanding of his poem. Light, itself can mean many things: light can clear a path in the dark, light can make what might have been unknown visible. When you are a child light defines the time to get up and the time to sleep. Like I said, perception of light changes as one grows older; And i believe that this is one of the key meanings of this poem: how love and light change as you grow; not fade away, but just change. Light is more significant with time, it has more meaning to you, you want more light; Light also signifies hope and the coming of tomorrow. Strand also uses imagery to define the meaning of love and romance in this poem when he uses the light coming from the candles. " You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves". The coming of light literally in the poem comes from " candles", and while candles don't provide much light, they do however have romantic associations. Strand uses candles to describe romance and love. " Stars gather, dreams pour into pillows", stars I believe define dreams and goals in your life, here Strand basically says that even as time goes on and you feel as if you have fulfilled your dreams and your goals, you still want more. As you sleep you want more, you desire more. And this want and this desire is what makes us humans, this is what makes us get up in the morning and do whatever we have to do. We do " it" to fulfill our hopes and our dreams. This is what brings " light" back to us. This " coming of light" defines our love and our future.