Poetic Devices

Although the poem is short and written in plain language, it is carefully built on a small number of powerful devices. Each of these works to convey the poet's fear of ageing and loss without ever stating that fear too directly.

Simile

The poem's most striking device is the simile, used twice to describe the mother's face. Early on, the sleeping mother's pale, still face is compared to that of a lifeless body, so that a living mother momentarily takes on the look of the dead. Later, at the airport, her wan, colourless face is likened to a pale moon in the last days of winter — a moon whose light is weak and fading. Both comparisons associate the mother with paleness, coldness and the ebbing of life, and together they create a mounting sense of mortality.

Contrasting imagery

The poem is organised around a deliberate contrast between images of age and images of youth. Inside the car we have the ageing, sleeping mother, drained of colour; outside we have young trees that seem to race past and lively children pouring out of their homes. The vigorous, moving pictures of the outside world are set against the frail, still figure of the mother, sharpening the reader's awareness of how far the mother has travelled from the freshness of youth.

Personification

The trees outside are described as though they can sprint or run. Trees are of course rooted and still; it is the speeding car that makes them appear to rush backwards. By granting them the human action of sprinting, the poet gives the outside world a surge of energy and life, which stands in pointed contrast to her nearly motionless mother.

Repetition

At the close of the poem the act of smiling is repeated. This repetition is important: it shows that the poet's smile is not a single, spontaneous expression but a cheerful mask held deliberately in place. The repeated smiling conveys forced, effortful cheer — a brave face put on to hide grief and to reassure the mother at the moment of parting.

Enjambment and the single-sentence structure …