My Mother at Sixty-Six

My mother at sixty six summary line by line explanation

Driving from my parent’s

home to Cochin last Friday
morning, I saw my mother,
beside me,

In these lines, the poet recalls a trip back to Cochin from her holiday in her parents’ house the previous week. It was a Friday, and that morning, she was driving with her mother next to her on the front seat.

Lines 5 – 10:

doze, open mouthed, her face
ashen like that
of a corpse and realised with pain
that she was as old as she
looked but soon
put that thought away, and

In these lines, the poet says that she was observing her mother who had fallen asleep on the front seat with her mouth slightly open. Her mother’s face was pale, and it reminded her of the nearly white faces of dead bodies. It is then that she comes to realize that her mother was not young any longer, and that her appearance had caught up with her age. This was very hard for the poet to accept, and so she was determined to focus her attention on something else.


Lines 11 – 15:

looked out at Young
Trees sprinting, the merry children spilling
out of their homes, but after the airport’s
security check, standing a few yards
away, I looked again at her, wan, pale

In these lines, the poet says that she turned away from her aging mother and decided to look outside the windows of the car in which she was driving. Outside, her eyes fell on the trees that the vehicle was passing by. The car was moving so fast that by way of relative motion, it seemed to the poet that all the trees she could see were also running at full speed past her. It seemed that those trees must have been quite youthful if they had the energy to move at such a fast pace. The poet’s eyes also feel on the children who were coming out of their houses, brimming over with their excitement to get outside. The poet passed all these sights and reached the airport. Till then, her mind was distracted by the sights. However, after the security check, she was standing a short distance away from her mother and again she chanced to notice the old woman. Just as before, her mother appeared very pale and insipid.


Lines 16 – 20:

as a late winter’s moon and felt that old
familiar ache, my childhood’s fear,
but all I said was, see you soon, Amma,
all I did was smile and smile and
smile……

In these lines, the poet compares her mother’s face with the sight of the moon on a night towards the end of winter. This made her recall the thing she had been most afraid of during her childhood – the fear that her mother would die one day. This was a fear that had plagued her many times before, and it was plaguing her again now. However, she did not let that fear show itself on her face. Instead she put up a brave face and waved goodbye to her mother. She assured her mother that they would be seeing each other again soon, and all the while, even though she was in great agony, the smile never left her face.

Poetic devices  used in the poem. 

1. Simile: it is the comparison of two things by using as or like. e.g. “her face ashen like that of a corpse”, “as a late winter’s moon”.
2. Metaphor: it is the direct comparison of two things without the use of as or like. e.g. “the merry children spilling”.
3. Personification: When we give human characteristics to animals or plants or non-living things. e.g. “trees sprinting”. 
4. Anaphora: It is the repetition of a word or phrase to create a poetic effect in a poem. e.g. the poet repeats these words, “smile and smile and smile”.
5. Alliteration: It is the repetition of the consonant sounds in a line of a poem. e.g. “my mother”, “that thought”, “I said was, see you soon”.

Source : https://brainly.in/question/2902458