Favourite Lines

This poem fills me with so much emotion because it has such a complicated meaning. It talks about life and death and how we should feel about that which gives me a lot of discomfort. Death is not something that many people think about or it is something that consumes other's minds. It is a truly complex topic and there were certain lines in this poem that hit me pretty hard.

"Stranded, they shrink slowly into the sand, and you have the uncomfortable feeling of knowing more than you should"

I believe that this line is referring to death approaching and how uncomfortable it is knowing that. It is like you know too much about your life ending because you do know that one day, it will end. The thought of a jellyfish shrinking into the sand makes you think about how as each moment passes and we get older, we get closer to shrinking into that sand. It could also mean that we welcome death at a certain point. One day, we will wash up on the shore and be okay with sinking into the sand and letting go. It fills me with a lot of emotion but I think that is Sue Sinclair's objective with this poem, to make you think.

"How every kind of beauty collapses and begins again"

This line makes me think of reincarnation and how when something dies, it gives the opportunity for something else to live. Death usually isn't what you would normally think of as beautiful the way that a birth is. She is trying to refer that it is all the same; it is a cycle of life. She tries to make the idea of death more beautiful and give it more understanding as to why it is essential for death to happen.

"Bodies vanishing like the body of this light, which dissolves without telling is why."

This line is referring to the confusion of death and how there is no certain reason as to why it happens. Sue Sinclair can refer to reincarnation and her beliefs but there is no definite explanation as to why death happens or what happens after you die. There is no answers or hints and she really needed to emphasize that at the end of her poem.

Why Jellyfish?

There must be a reason why Sue Sinclair decided to use jellyfish in her poem. I think it is because jellyfish are so beautiful just the way that humans are, they move slowly the same as our lives and they die on the shore peacefully just like many humans die peacefully. The jellyfish represents our life and how slow it is but at the same time, we don't live for very long. A jellyfish never thinks about how soon it's life could come to an end and neither should humans. We should not fear death or look at it as negative. Instead, we should be a jellyfish and enjoy the beautiful of the ocean and enjoy the beauty of our lives.