Sunrise by Louise Glück Poem Analysis
Sunrise by Louise Glück poem analysis is about time and change.
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About the Author
Louise Glück writes with a sense of soul, touching upon themes of isolation, death, life, beauty, and transcendence. Her prose is straightforward, using diction from everyday life, but her rhythms are poignant. In 2020 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature; she is an essayist and the author of 12 books of poetry.
Poem Analysis
When I read this poem, I imagine sitting above a hilltop waiting for the sunrise. The brisk air and peace of the morning gentleness: hardly anyone is awake and the sky is slowly waking. The sun tell us we have another chance to live: get started.
Two themes bleeding through this poem are change and time passing; both go hand in hand because life changes through time.
Change & Time
We get the sense that the author doesn’t want things to change: there is a bittersweetness to life that haunts us but also enchants us. People get older, experiences never last forever, and we move on. Time is a man-made construct that restricts our spirits into a timeline. Life moves forward - it doesn’t slow down for you, if you miss a sunrise: come back another day. But know that what peeks over that mountain will be a different experience.
In these three lines, the author shows us that time passed when she returned to her childhood routine, watching the sunset as she once did felt familiar but different.
“I went back but didn’t stay.
Everyone I cared about was gone,
some dead, some disappeared into one of those places that don’t exist,”
Sunrise, Louise Glück
Although we notice time moving over our lifetime, the earth is a slower progression. This is a double edged sword: we know time is passing because experience changes, we are older, but the earth looks the same. This can haunt us. But there is comfort in knowing that time doesn’t burn everything adored away. The Earth stays relatively the same; we are creatures of evolution. A sun once rose when we were ten the same way it will rise at twenty-five. But who we are altered over that duration, so the memories cling to us like humidity. They feel as real as if they’d happened yesterday yet as far away as a lifetime.
“And if you missed a day, there was always the next,
and if you missed a year, it didn’t matter,
the hills weren’t going anywhere,
the thyme and rosemary kept coming back,
the sun kept rising, the bushes kept bearing fruit–”
Sunrise, Louise Glück
I love this poem because it reminds me of the fragility of humanity: being creatures bound by time is daunting. All the pain and love that comes with it is so precious. But we can't forget to admire the sunrise and observe our earth's bounty of beauty, which reminds us to soak it in and remain grateful for the present because it is a gift. Sunrise by Louis Glück poem analysis gives us a glimpse into our individual sun that peaks over the mountain, showing us it's okay to start over again: life is constantly changing.
A Village Life
Sunrise comes from this book of poems: A Village Life. I highly recommend Glück’s work because she is curious. This woman has a deep soul and seeks to emote her readers; her vulnerability is admirable. This YouTuber sums it up beautifully, and I can’t wait to read more of her poetry.
Sunrise
By Louise Glück
This time of year, the window boxes smell of the hills,
the thyme and rosemary that grew there,
crammed into the narrow spaces between the rocks
and, lower down, where there was real dirt,
competing with other things, blueberries and currants,
the small shrubby trees the bees love–
Whatever we ate smelled of the hills,
even when there was almost nothing.
Or maybe that’s what nothing tastes like, thyme and rosemary.
Maybe, too, that’s what it looks like –
beautiful, like the hills, the rocks above the tree line
webbed with sweet-smelling herbs,
the small plants glittering with dew–
It was a big event to climb up there and wait for dawn,
seeing what the sun sees as it slides out from behind the rocks,
and what you couldn’t see, you imagined;
your eyes would go as far as they could, to the river, say,
and your mind would do the rest–
And if you missed a day, there was always the next,
and if you missed a year, it didn’t matter,
the hills weren’t going anywhere,
the thyme and rosemary kept coming back,
the sun kept rising, the bushes kept bearing fruit–
The streelight’s off: that’s dawn here.
It’s on: that’s twilight.
Either way, no one looks up. Everyone just pushes ahead,
and the smell of the past is everywhere,
the thyme and rosemary rubbing against your clothes,
the smell of too many illusions–
I went back but didn’t stay.
Everyone I cared about was gone,
some dead, some disappeared into one of those places that don’t exist,
the ones we dreamed about because we saw them from the top of the hills–
I had to see if the fields were still shining,
the sun telling the same lies about how beautiful the world is
when all you need to know of a place is, do people live there.
If they do, you know everything.
Between them, the hills and sky took up all the room.
Whatever was left, that was ours for a while.
But sooner or later the hills will take it back, give it to the animals.
And maybe the moon will send the seas there
and where we once lived will be a stream or river coiling around the base of
the hills,
paying the sky the complement of reflection–
Blue in summer. White when the snow falls.
