not about a spider.....

The poem "The Widow's Lament in Springtime" is obviously about a sad widow, so I'm not going to talk about that. I'm going to focus on the springtime part of the title. A widow can easily be sad in winter or summer or fall, so why make the poem take place in the spring? Spring is characterized by flowers, and it is these flowers that set off her sadness. She used to see beauty in the flowers, but now she forgets their true beauty. She now sees her dead husband in them. Maybe she thinks of the flowers at his funeral, or maybe they just remind her of him, but either way, it is the flowers of spring that amplify her sadness. Her son sees happiness in the distant, free field of flowers, but the widow is hesitant to see the happiness there. She wants to go to that place and sink into the marsh near the flowers, but for some reason she doesn't. I see that reason as one of her not being comfortable leaving her yard. Though it makes her sad, it reminds her of her husband. She doesn't want to leave a place that brings him to her mind. Though it would benefit her to leave, and she knows that it would, she can't bring herself to doing it.