We Don’t Make Such Changes Alone
I’ve been thinking of this poem for a full year. More than a year ago, I lost my job. I was afraid of the lack of security, and I also saw an opportunity to change course entirely.
I happened upon this poem and continue to repeat the first line. I reread it now and then. Before writing this interpretation, I typed it on my typewriter, trying to focus on each word, trying to slow myself down enough to really understand what I’d missed before. I placed it on my wall.
It reminds me that there are moments—only moments—when we have an opportunity to be more than our individual selves and leave one chapter of our lives, one idea of what we’re capable of, for another.
Here it is:
The Leaving
My father said I could not do it,
but all night I picked the peaches.
The orchard was still, the canals ran steadily.
I was a girl then, my chest its own walled garden.
How many ladders to gather an orchard?
I had only one and a long patience with lit hands
and the looking of the stars which moved right through me
the way the water moved through the canals with a voice
that seemed to speak of this moonless gathering
and those who had gathered before me.
I put the peaches in the pond’s cold water,
all night up the ladder and down, all night my hands
twisting fruit as if I were entering a thousand doors,
all night my back a straight road to the sky.
And then out of its own goodness, out
of the far fields of the stars, the morning came,
and inside me was the stillness a bell possesses
just after it has been rung, before the metal
begins to long again for the clapper’s stroke.
The light came over the orchard.
The canals were silver and then were not.
and the pond was—I could see as I laid
the last peach in the water—full of fish and eyes.
To me, “The Leaving” speaks to what each of us can achieve when we’re aligned with powerful, unseen forces. That there is in each of us a divine spark and potential which can go unrealized unless we’re attuned to and moving in the direction of something greater than our individual selves. This could be a religious self, a 12-step Higher Power, a family, a political ideal, the natural world—I’m not one to say what that is for you.
This poem is often presented as what we can achieve despite naysayers, leaning heavily on the importance of the first line, “My father said I could not do it”. And it’s true, despite her father’s doubt, she does pick all the peaches thanks to her own equipment and abilities: “one ladder and a long patience”.
This is an important focus. We all feel limits on what is possible, whether imposed by our own ideas of ourselves, what we feel family or society expects from us, or fear of what might happen if we fail (or succeed), though these limits are often not entirely true.
But it’s important to remember the poem is about more than proving oneself (though that is a piece). Largely, the space of the poem is dedicated to unseen forces moving through a girl. She does not pick the peaches on her own—she has the help of the stars and the water. She moves from her father’s idea of what is possible to the water, stars and voice’s knowledge and energy.
What this means, I can’t explain to the satisfaction of any sciences or literal meaning. Yes, the stars literally light the way, giving her “lit hands” to help her see during the dark. (Which, by the way, is not threatening. It hides her from sight and helps her connect with the natural forces around her.)
But she says the stars also “moved right through me,” as though what has made the stars is also in her, and she and the stars are moving together. Considering that everything on Earth is the transformed matter left from the collisions of stars, maybe this is literal after all.
The way the stars move in her is the same way water moves through the canal—canals are used to transport. So the water moves according to the laws of nature, and in this case, would not be too rough. And it is bringing her to another place, the same as the way a canal would bring a boat of goods to a merchant.
But then, the water also moves “with a voice that seemed to speak of this moonless gathering/and those who had gathered before me.” We come back to the mysticism of water, the idea of water as a life force. In utero, we’re in water, our bodies are water, we’re baptized in water, we live by water, and in many cultures, our ashes return to water. The water remembers, the water speaks, and this gathering has happened before. To me, this has the feeling of ancientness.
Let’s keep track of who’s doing what here:
The stars move through her
like water which speaks of
the moonless gathering
and those who gathered before
Everything is gathered—the girl, the stars, the canal, the voice, the gathering, those who gathered before. All these parts have come to this place and time for a purpose to work towards together, and the girl is moving and changing and going somewhere new as a result. This is not her own achievement alone, but the result of her tapping into and aligning with forces greater than herself.
And so, as part of this collective which is working around her and through her, and with her ladder and patience, the girl does her hard work of peach-picking all night. The very act of gathering fruit is to cull what is already existing, what has been planned, and put it in one place so it can be easily consumed for the benefit of others. If you didn’t guess already, we aren’t just talking about peaches (though fruit-picking is a fine thing to do).
As she gathers the fruit, the girl twists the peaches the way one twists a doorknob. She is “leaving” one room, one part of her life, one where her chest is walled and secret, and entering another. She continues to be aligned with the stars, her “back a straight road to the sky.”
And then the moment is over. The night is done, the canals turn silver and then back, she is like a bell that has just been rung and is now still.
As the light comes, she sees the pond where she placed the peaches are full of fish and eyes. In order to do her work, she had to feel no one was watching her. But, as her accomplishment is finished, she and her work also become visible. The eyes are undescribed—neither helpful nor harmful—they’re just watching.
As she enters a new phase of life, the walls come down, and she is now aware of being seen. We can imagine that there are threats ahead—her longing to be “rung” again by a night such as this. Many writers have a knockout first book but struggle to reproduce the success again.
Many times the eyes on us can limit what we say and how we say it.
It’s important to note this poem is from Kelly’s first poetry collection. It could speak to, I believe, a moment when a poet becomes a poet. While we don’t know what will happen next for the girl, only what’s happened, Kelly went on to be a prolific, popular poet who many of us like me look up to. “Song” was one of the first books of poetry I bought.
The poem is an important lesson about potential, spirituality, collective spirit, and hard work. As always, it’s most productive to not only dissect it intellectually but to live with it emotionally and spiritually. To place yourself in the orchard at night with the water and stars and listen.