Home Burial

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day she goes to the stairway window looking out upon the nearby family plot. The sight of the raw mound where her child lies buried reopens her grief. But, another emotion wells up as well – anger and bitterness at her husband, which is at first unexplained. The first hint of the rift between them shows up on lines twelve to thirteen, she "refused him any help, /
Hazelwood 2
with the least stiffening of her neck and silence." Their dialogue is cold and antagonistic. "What is it—what? /Just that I see. / You don’t, she challenged. /Tell me what it is."(18-19). The death of child, which should bind husband and wife closer in their common grief, pries them apart instead (Gerber 128).

In the husband’s first two lines as wells his last one, his attitude toward his wife is domineering and seems insensitive. First he tells her " he wants to know" what she keeps looking at through the window; then he tell ...

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but in the context of the poem it seems more likely that she is going simply to a friend or a relative, probably a woman, to discuss with them the topic she cannot bring herself to broach her own husband. Struggling to restrain himself, the husband sits down, speaking and reflecting on the fact that his wife goes to other people with her troubles instead of discussing them with him (Marcus 47).

At last the wall of silence breaks down and we learn why she is so angry with him. After the baby died, the father went out and dug a little grave in the family plot. The mother watched from the window as he made the grave.

Making the gravel leap and leap in the air,

Leap up, like that, ...

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