Anna Holt
Mr. Salsich
English 9
April 13, 2009

My Brother, My Friend:
A Reflection on a Poem

Families differ. Some are broken, split down the middle with a sharp knife of neglect, while others are held together with love and support. Some are falling apart, a blanket with frayed edges and weak thread. However, unlike any other phenomenon (FAST) of life, family is forever. While some will disagree, begging us to listen to their story of loss and hurt, a mother will always be a mother and a father will remain a father. No matter the circumstances, a brother will always be a brother, a comrade, a friend.

In Naomi Shihab Nye's ode, "The Little Brother Poem," she speaks about her personal relationship with her sibling. She tells her story with anecdotes and memories; however there is a larger idea at play. In the beginning of the poem, she tells us about inconsequential items that force her mind to remember her brother. She discovers "a packing box, a white rag," and wonders what his reaction would be if he were there with her. These things stand for deeper concepts. Perhaps what Ms. Nye is trying to say is that even in his absence, she continues to discover things about her brother that she had previously ignored- important things, aspects of his personality she had left to rot at the bottom of her list of worries. Perhaps a packing box is a long lost love he never told his sister about, and maybe a white rag represents a hidden anger with the world. As the poem continues, Nye says that she regrets his "face bleeding" as a result of her carelessnesss. These lines, seemingly simple and subtly wise, stand for something more significant than a childhood accident. (Participial Phrase) She is sorry for everything she did that caused her brother pain. Every wound she inflicted, every drop of blood he shed, every tear that she ignited, she regrets. (Asyndeton) In the last line of her poem, Ms. Nye relates "fingering receipts and stubs" to the memories of the two of them that she still holds dear. She hopes to gain his forgiveness, to come back into his life as a stable and supportive friend. She hopes that, at the end of his days, when he craves some form of positive energy, her brother will be able to "find [her] later." She hopes to be there when he doesn't have "so much time".

What was it that inspired this wish to reconnect with her brother? It was love, no doubt, but perhaps the event that triggered this need to act on her sisterly adoration was her own personal pain. In the short story "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin, a similar occurrence takes place. For years, Sonny's brother had taken Sonny's troubles as an inevitable snowball of problems. He did not see a solution for his aggrieved (FAST) brother, and therefore looked at the situation as a lost cause. However, when his own promising life came to a halt as his young daughter was taken from him, he sees Sonny's troubles for the first time. His pain "made [Sonny's] real." The same sort of powerful event could have taken place as Ms. Nye decided to go to her brother with offerings of comfort. She makes references to the fact that this apology is sudden. She is "dumping out a whole drawer at once," finally paying attention to her brother's need. Perhaps, after years of blissful ignorance, she had experienced pain of her own. Perhaps suddenly, like the storm that hits an unsuspecting crowd, like a tiger who murders its naive prey, devastation took hold of Ms. Nye's life (periodic sentence). Perhaps "[her] trouble made his real."

In the end, some siblings will not have this revelation (FAST) of understanding for the pain of their relatives. Some will never truly connect and will remain awkwardly tied through the family they were born into. Some will never have had the miscommunication in the first place. No matter what relationship a given family may have, we are eternally tied to our siblings. A brother will always be a brother, a comrade, a friend.