I have often felt that interpreting a poem too keenly can lead to dissection of the poems meaning and structure; the poem may therefore, end up suggesting what it had actually never intended to. However, I promise the poet not to do any such injustice to this substantially well-written poem, Homeless Man Washing His Foot in the Bathroom of a Bus Station:
It is curious for a start as to why the poet must, of all the people living in this earth, desperately follow the footsteps of or trail in a homeless and dirty man and watch him wash his foot. But the poet does do that and the reason provided is:
to decode or divine the record/ that would open and end/ this ancient baptism under a cold fire, / fluorescent light
The poet seemingly conjures up the image of a ritual of baptism; here, that of the man washing his foot. This ceremonial cleansing or ablution is being performed in the Bathroom of a Bus Station. One might think that the poet is visualizing the homeless man as attempting to cleanse his wrong-doings by this act, absolving himself of his sins and other religious ideas, but by all means, if one does consider the use of the religious symbol of baptism here and look at the whole event thus, it would be stretching the meaning too far. In an age where religious symbols have lost their potency so far as meaning goes, baptism here would only mean cleansing; nothing more or nothing less. The poet is not particularly interested in the ancient ritual of cleansing that symbolized the cleansing of ones
conscience too. He would only like to demystify the whole event- so as to open, as well as end, this act of baptizing, this act of the man cleansing himself- through his poetry.
Yet there really can be nothing perplexing about a man cleaning his foot in a bathroom and the poet fabricates the whole event so as to mystify the circumstance. I wonder if the man had not objected to the poet peering into the bathroom, and curiously observing him washing his feet or maybe the poet just caught a glimpse of this man in the act and then carried in his mind impressions of the event and wrote about it. The poet manages to make the best of the irregularly regressing details that he
captures:
his flared/ boots worn thin, // and their flaps, twisted, / stiff at oblique angles; his jeans darkened/ below the knees and corroded/ in streaks; or his yellow cap/ which still bore, monogrammed/ in green, the cheerful hieroglyph of a former/ employer
The above lines are an exemplary example of word-painting in poetry. The poor quality of the boots worn by the man and his darkened jeans substantiate the wretchedness of the mans situation. But the poet does not get subjective at this moment by showing concern for the
condition of this man, like what Wordsworth does in The Solitary Reaper upon hearing the reaper hum a tune to herself. He has already said this with regard to his endeavour of decoding this ritual,
How I try/ and do not matter.
The concluding stanza is the best. The poet as per his intentions decodes this ritual by means of a rather vivid imagery. The blistered foot of the man is a fat, brown eel, / against the porcelain
a stunning comparison. The rest of it goes thus,
the purple/ wash of blood returning,/ veins aligning, in branches under/ the chipped-bark skin/ of the image of the foot of this man, who/ with tap water and coarse hands was trying/ to make his body feel.
He stretches the metaphor in further describing the bloody foot of the man. The baptism is an effort to make the body feel; the body which has been benumbed due to the exacting rigors of
life
This poem can at best be considered to be a snapshot of an event. The poet has convinced readers that even a small and negligible event such as watching a ragged man wash his bloody feet can inspire poetry. The effective rendering of the poem leaves behind a trail of thoughts and ideas in the readers mind.
I wish the poet would care to answer this question-
What were the circumstances that led you to write this poem? Did you really witness such a man washing his foot or were you just imagining?
In case you really witnessed this man did you speak to him or try to find out more about his life? Kindly elaborate.
Vidyanjali.
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