Midway Shade

Midway Shade

Johnclarestokes 

Great, great grandpa was patient with 

Great, great grandma's complaint 

There was no shade in Midway

Every tree went to cordwood stacked highly

To stave the icy winter shadows long slant.

It was in the long slant great, great grandpa

Planted the Camphor 

Great, great grandma was pleased

She'd have summer shade, eventually

Rocking in the long slant hymn humming 

It was great grandma who told great grandpa

Impatiently

When are you going to fell the Camphor

The long slant of winter gives me shivers

And great grandpa would promise, eventually.

It was grandma who told grandpa wistfully 

Do you recall Midway before the shade

Of all the promises in winters slant made 

And grandpa would rock and nod, silently

It was pa who in the Spring came visiting

This is where once in cold slant I played

Before in Midway the promise was made

Ma just stood under the Camphor, agreeing.

And so in the winter I came with my bride

The Camphor towering over the home place

And the bride saw the long slant upon my face

Of promises made and promises that died

Eventually.

Midway Shade

An Analysis of 

Midway Shade

Midway Shade is a meditation on time, inheritance, and the uneasy fulfillment of promises made across generations. Through the recurring image of a camphor tree and the repeated motif of the “long slant” of winter light, the poem explores how hope, patience, and regret are transmitted not only through memory but through place itself.

At the center of the poem stands the camphor tree, planted as an act of foresight and care. It is intended to provide shade—comfort deferred into the future. Yet from its planting onward, the tree exists in tension with human time. Each generation encounters it differently: as promise, as inconvenience, as memory, as explanation, and finally as reckoning. The tree grows steadily, but its usefulness arrives out of sync with the lives that awaited it. In this way, the camphor becomes a symbol of time’s indifference to human desire. Nature fulfills promises without concern for who survives to benefit.

The poem’s structure reinforces this idea through its generational progression. Each stanza shifts perspective subtly forward in time, marked by familial roles rather than individual names. “Great, great grandpa,” “grandma,” “pa,” and finally the speaker himself form a lineage that mirrors the growth of the tree. This genealogical movement gives the poem the cadence of oral history, as though the story has been told many times before, each retelling shaped by memory rather than immediacy. The repeated phrase “It was…” further underscores the sense that these moments are already fixed in the past, observed rather than relived.

Central to the poem’s emotional coherence is the recurring phrase “long slant.” Literally, it describes the angled light and shadows of winter, but metaphorically it expands to signify the slant of time itself—aging, decline, and the slow tilt toward loss. The “long slant” links physical cold with emotional chill, bodily discomfort with existential unease. As it reappears across generations, the phrase collapses decades into a single, continuous winter, suggesting that human experience repeats even as individuals change.

Tone plays a critical role in the poem’s effectiveness. The language remains restrained and unsentimental, relying on small domestic gestures—rocking, nodding, hymn humming—to convey emotional depth. Silence is as important as speech. Promises are made, questioned, remembered, but rarely resolved aloud. This restraint allows the poem’s final realization to emerge organically rather than rhetorically.

The concluding stanza marks a shift from inheritance to embodiment. When the speaker’s bride sees “the long slant upon my face,” the metaphor turns inward. The speaker recognizes that he has become part of the same pattern he has been recounting. The shade now exists, the promise technically fulfilled, but the fulfillment carries the visible cost of time. The final isolated word, “Eventually,” functions as both closure and judgment. It affirms that time does deliver, but never on human terms.

Ultimately, Midway Shade is not simply a family narrative but a philosophical reflection on deferred hope. It suggests that meaning is often realized too late to feel like reward, and that inheritance includes not only land and objects, but expectations and waiting. The poem’s quiet power lies in its acceptance of this truth without bitterness—only recognition. In doing so, it honors both the promise and the patience that sustained it.