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The Comfort of Elders

January 29, 2015

by Susan Ioannou

You are my buffer between
the whitened landscape beyond a window
and now.

A few hours higher,
you can see further
out over ice where the shore disappears.

Snowlight calms in your faces.
Blue drifts by, translucent
as untroubled eyes.

I know, if I wait
and crane on tiptoes,
one day

I may see you melted through glass
drifting away on the wind
like a shudder.


Questions and Answers

What inspired “The Comfort of Elders”?

“The Comfort of Elders” was inspired by my encounters in The Arts and Letters Club of Toronto with a few members thirty years my senior whom I very much admired. They used to look at me as if they knew a secret born of long life experience that I was yet to find out. Unlike much younger people, they had no fear of death.

What poetic techniques did you use in “The Comfort of Elders”?

I used alliteration (“buffer between”; “whitened … window”) and assonance (many repeated “i” sounds) to unify the poem in the ear. I set the lines in a triadic pattern, as three symbolizes the unity of body, mind, and spirit that I felt in those wise elderly people.

This poem “The Comfort of Elders” originally appeared in Postcolonial Identities. Spec. issue of Canadian Literature 149 (Summer 1996): 100-100.

Please note that works on the Canadian Literature website may not be the final versions as they appear in the journal, as additional editing may take place between the web and print versions. If you are quoting reviews, articles, and/or poems from the Canadian Literature website, please indicate the date of access.