The poem features four verse paragraphs each focusing on different stages of a lifetime. The first and fourth verse paragraphs focus on childhood and old age respectively; the second and third focus on particular possibilities; for example, they both begin with an “if” clause, which limits the focus to a particular life, not necessarily as universal as the first and third paragraphs which may include most people’s experiences.
First Verse Paragraph – Courage in small things
The speaker’s claim is that courage is demonstrated by ordinary events in life, and her first example is a child taking its first step. The speaker thinks “the child’s first step” is “as awesome as an earthquake.”
Other childhood events that took courage were learning to ride a bike, getting your first spanking, which is momentous, for the speaker metaphorically claims that the young child’s “heart / went on a journey all alone.” That lonely journey, then, shows the courage of the young child enduring that spanking.
And then when some bully at school called her that name, “fatty” or “crazy,” and made her feel that she did not belong, the child showed courage again by drinking “their acid” and hiding her pain of feeling like an outcast.
The speaker emphasizes the starker occasions by representing them with strong metaphors, as in the lines, “The first spanking when your heart / went on a journey all alone,” and “you drank their acid.”
Second Verse Paragraph –“if you faced the death of bombs and bullets”
The second verse paragraph moves on to later in a person’s life. This particular life is that of a soldier in a war zone. The speaker again shows how in little ways even the soldier’s courage is displayed. Even though he is there to protect the flag of his country, he is there with only some protective gear, and again the speaker emphasizes the act of courage by metaphorically referring to it as “a small coal” that the soldier has to keep “swallowing.”
About the act of courage that most citizens would deem the greatest, the act of saving a fellow soldier’s life, this speaker claims that act was not courage at all but love: “it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.”
Third Verse Paragraph – “if you have endured a great despair”
In the third verse paragraph, the speaker delineates the activities of the person who has simply suffered; we do not know the cause of the suffering, and it does not matter. The speaker metaphorically focuses on the heart and circulatory system saying that the suffering was like getting a transfusion of fire, which caused the heart to bleed and then the suffer had to pick scabs off the heart and then wring it out like a wet sock. Something of an interesting mixed metaphor/simile here.
Then again, the speaker personifies the “sorrow” which the sufferer gives a back rub and covers with a blanket. After the sorrow was allowed to sleep awhile, it woke to some relief, “. . . to the wings of the roses / and was transformed.”
Fourth Verse Paragraph – “when you face old age”The fourth verse paragraph focuses on old age and death and how the person will show courage in small ways in the face of these inevitable facts of life: the person will want spring to be sharp like a sword, and she will love her loved ones with greater affection. And the last small detail is that at the very end after death has finally called, the speaker will simply slip out the back door wearing her house slippers. The smallest detail yet accompanying the greatest event.
The speakers has taken us through a life showing us how this life was lived with courage in the small details of life. Of course, we become very aware that this poem represents just one person’s view. The speaker’s interpretations of what is a small thing might be open to challenges.
