"Slowy" > "Painting a Room"

The poem “Slowly” by Donna Masini and “Painting a Room” by Katie Kapovich are the poems I chose to write about. In the poem “Slowly” as a child in the fourth grade, she took a trip to the Zoo and was describing what she was seeing behind a glass. She had seen a rabbit being swallowed by a snake as she stood in front of this reptile. Donna describes, “..its head clenched in the wide jaws of the snake, the snake sucking it down its long throat.” (DonnaMasini138)  The watching of this, is a real life lesson to her she made it seem like. She is slowly taking it in to what it is that she is witnessing which is the loss of the rabbit’s life; therefor she is comparing it to what the losses she has lost such as loved ones. As you get older you understand that you cannot simply control what happens in life.

There is absolutely things in life that will grab you out of nowhere whether you like it or not, and it will take over and you will no longer have control of it, As well, she observed the way this snake swallowed the rabbit, she knows there is absolute no way this poor innocent animal would ever see the light ever again. Such as her past, the past stays behind and is never to be brought back up. She takes what was once done and lost in her past as the snake swallows the rabbit all as a whole. There is no stopping to what is chosen to happen in life, you just go with it. “I didn’t know why the snake didn’t choke, the rabbit never moved…sucking it down, just so I am taking this in, slowly.” (DonnaMasini139) For the loss of the Rabbit she is coping with her losses as well.

“Painting a Room” She is in the process of moving. But there are things that are drawing her back that is making her shed tears. The effort and changes she has made to the apartment she has been living in, no longer matter, she is moving countries. With a visa being expired, her time is up in the country she is recently in and is unable to do anything about this. As she shits back she acknowledges the turquoise frame and takes a look at the “Ten years of fears, unrequited loves, odd jobs, of night phone calls.” (KatieKapovich112) she is comparing that as if it was time being wasted there by doing all that or revolving her time as she was there for the past ten years.

Yet again she could not go back and change the time that was being wasted or done in the past just like Donna. What happened was already done, lessons were learned and regrets were made. In the case of these poems they are both reflecting off from the decisions they made that they are now regretting in the future. The last night Katie spends in her apartment she describes it as a “Freedom smells of a freshly painted room…” (KatieKapovich113) meaning after that night, she will no longer be able to live as she used to. Her visa expiration was taking hold of her changes being made in her life from now on.