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16 pages 32 minutes read

Peter Meinke

Advice to My Son

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1991

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Symbols & Motifs

Shattered Windshield and Bursting Shell

The shattered windshield in Line 7 likely refers to a car’s damaged glass visor during a fatal road accident. The bursting shell likely refers to an exploding bullet or a grenade in a war-like scenario. Though these are concrete, literal images referring to real-life apocalyptic scenarios, they also carry great symbolic weight. Both images symbolize a sudden, untimely death, as happens to so many young people. However, at a deeper level, they symbolize nihilistic humanmade violence and tragedy. Significantly, unlike the natural vegetable and fruit images in the second stanza, the windshield and shell are synthetic, manufactured devices. Thus, the poem ties an unnatural, early death with the symbols of manmade violence, industry, and war.

Further, the shattered windshield and bursting shell also symbolize the unpredictability of life. Their sudden introduction in the poem comes as a breach symbolic of the nature of happenstance and disaster. The broken windshield cannot be mended and the bursting shell cannot be rebuilt nor reintroduced in the chamber it left. Life is irreversible and therefore must be thoughtfully lived.

Flowers and Vegetables

In the second stanza, the speaker urges the son to plant both “the peony and the rose” (Line 11) as well as “squash and spinach, turnips and tomatoes” (Line 12). The flowers symbolize beauty, while the vegetables are indicative of practical necessity. The vegetables must be planted “between” (Line 11) the peony and the rose, symbolizing the necessity for balance.

While the fruit and vegetable imagery resonates with the poem’s theme of living life in a balanced, thoughtful way, there is a deeper meaning to the particular plants. The sweet-smelling rose is a universal symbol of beauty and sensuality, but is also associated with love, religion, and mysticism. In the poetry of William Butler Yeats—one of Meinke’s prominent influences—the rose is both a symbol of his lifelong love Maud Gonne, as well as a state of union between art and life, matter and spirit. Thus, use of the rose here evokes the idea that beauty and necessity are not adversaries; rather, they are two sides to a coin. Unlike the rose, the peony is not a fragrant flower. Yet it offers aesthetic value and is often associated with healing, modesty, and courage in Greek and Chinese mythology. Planting both the rose and the peony could symbolize appreciating beauty in all its forms, or indulging various senses.

The speaker’s choice of vegetables is also interesting because the squash and the turnip are winter vegetables, while the tomato is a warm-season crop. Squash and turnips are known for being hardy and are often stored in cellars to last the long winter. Thus, when the speaker advises the son to plant winter vegetables, they are suggesting the younger man prepare for a lean season. In other words, the son should plant in himself a temperament that can withstand periods of difficulty since life features both summers and winters. Further, the metaphor of planting a garden refers to the son adopting values of flexibility, hard work, and creativity.

Bread, Wine, and Nectar

The poem uses several symbols from religious and biblical iconography and imagery. Though on one level, bread and wine can be read as stand-ins for vegetables and flowers or necessity and beauty, in Christian tradition these symbolize the body and blood of Christ (referring to Christ’s sacrifice for humanity). Some critics interpret the reference to bread and wine as the speaker advising the son to follow religion. However, rather than serving as overtly religious symbols, bread and wine are more likely used to highlight the importance of inculcating the values of faith and generosity.

Similarly, the idea of a man in a desert seeking nectar symbolizes the spirit’s search for beauty and hope, but also carries overtones of the manna the god of the Old Testament provided as holy food for his chosen people while they wandered the desert. In the context of the poem, the secondary meaning of the desert and nectar could again be linked with having faith, which will see a man through a literal and metaphorical desert. Finally, the very idea of planting a garden is associated with God creating the Garden of Eden. However, unlike Eden, the son’s garden should be neither perfect nor unearthly. It has to be planted with toil and thought, thus creating a life worth living.

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