The Stream (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Mona Van Duyn
- First Published: 1982
- Type of Work: Poem
- Genres: Poetry
- Subjects: United States or Americans, Mothers, Parents and children, Love or romance, Food, Old age or elderly people, Aging, Water
“The Stream” is a narrative poem, written in rhymed couplets, which relates the events of the speaker's last four days spent with her mother. The time is three months after the death of the speaker's father; her mother is in a nursing home and hates it. The mother's memory is failing, with the result that, by mistake, she makes a huge effort and dresses herself for a special lunch with her daughter. The lunch is really tomorrow, but the daughter is touched that her frail mother has made so much effort on her own, even fastening to her blouse a pin the daughter once brought her from...
[The entire page is 628 words long]
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