Shoulders
Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.
No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.
This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.
His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.
We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.

 The road will only be wide.

 The rain will never stop falling. 

I think that this piece talks a lot about what we do for the one we love and the lengths that we go to for them to be safe and happy. In this poem, the main character is the man who is carrying his son in the rain. Another thing is that I think is important to draw on is the line "Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE" I think that it is important to pay attention to how the author writes these lines and talks about how much this man cares for his son, the internal structure and priority for his son to stay dry and asleep. I think that it is something people even today use as a way to measure parents love but talking about how he doesn't have anything that recognizes him is also something that is very relevant with volunteering and working today. I think that the ending of this poem is also really important because of the idea of not just doing kind actions to your family or people that you love but to involve everybody and to care for everything themselves. The idea of living in harmony with other people is something that has become very mainstream and earning ways to coexist with different people is something that the author feels very passionate about. Another thing that I find really interesting about this poem is that element of "the rain will never stop falling" this can relate to her struggles as coming from the middle east in her heritage and dealing being an interracial child. I think that part of what Naomi was showing is the struggle that she may have gone through in relation to her race. The way that modern society views people from the Middle East is difficult because of prejudice and the hate that many people have created for people, This line is very deep and rooted in something that Naomi may have felt.


poem ties into her roots
Talks about a struggle that parents try to shield their children from
Connections between people and their relationships together
PRotecting those you love
NAture being symbolism for other hardships in life (prejudices, conflicts, etc.)
No rhyme scheme
Showing what an ideal world may look like - caring for each other


This poem has 1 stanza with 16 lines and 6 sentences.

Two Countries

Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a 
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.

Skin had hope, that’s what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin’s secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.

This poem has 2 stanzas aswell

A reptition in the word Skin 

21 lines

This poem talks about the way that skin has a conetion with people and telling your story. This poem also draws on the idea of traveling and finding mening in life and beinga  part of somethign outside of your own small bubble.