A Spell For Forgetting a Father

“he walks through your face”

epigraph

establishes father-son relationship + intertwined identities

“you will need”

second person, providing guidance for others from personal experience

detached, impersonal voice recreates an instruction manual

“candles, feathers and your own strong head for heights”

triadic list, spell’s ‘ingredients’, must prepare for a great transition

“candles"

symbolic of hope, looking to future

“feathers”

symbolic of flight/ transition, and being free from burden

“strong head for heights”

idiom

personal risk to identity

transformation requires loss

“in full view of the sun”

symbol of masculinity/ fatherhood

“your father’s name… your own name”

syntactical parallelism

name gives sense of belonging, intertwined identity

“so the wings meet your shoulders”

allusion to Icarus

inverts myth, wings as a method of escape from arrogance of the father

free from burden

heavy enjambment

sense of lightness

foregrounds flight or transformation

“as I release you, so you release me”

chiasmus = bonds breaking

sibliance = creates effect of wind/ breathing out, physical release

'“Bury the rest.”

simple sentence gives finality

connotations of death and funerals suggests moving on from what was valuable

“dawn” “light” to “shadow”

s.f of brightness mirrors the transition away from father (sun)

“find” “hold” “keep” to “let” “leave” “bury”

imperatives echo journey

from clinging to an absent father, to being finally free from burden