Keeping Things Whole

Keeping Things Whole
Mark Strand
# the poet pleads for wholeness against the fragmentation that goes on in life.
# Search for identity i.e. who am I? , where I am?
# everyone has a separate reason on moving from one place to another but poet is moving to find himself in the world.
# Sense of alienation.

The poem Keeping Things Whole is taken from Selected Poems (1980). The poet pleads for wholeness against the usual fragmentation that goes on in life. The poet believes in whole part and not in partial. He knows the value of each and every part of nature to present nature as whole. He tries to know the value of each and every small and small constituents of nature to continue the wholeness of nature. The poet indirectly pleads human beings to fill the gaps in the nature if they separate the parts of nature. The poet indirectly pleads human beings to keep nature whole by conserving its every small parts in every small part in every nook and corner.
The poem deals with two separate things of anything, which are part and whole. The nature has small parts small parts. It is divided into the separate elements. He has lost himself in the field. He is losing himself everywhere. The poet parts the air forward but it becomes whole behind him. He only makes the air whole, not a part. But everything becomes whole itself. We see field, air, etc as a part not as a complete. Our lives are also parted but it is only illusion. If we try to make separate parts, that is only hollowness of concept.
The poet has presented himself in the field missing and parting in the air and he is whole not part in the bank drop. He wants to be whole, not part. He is not happy with himself because he is an intruder in the natural environment. He feels that he is fragmenting, disturbing and damaging the natural wholeness that is why air moves to fill the spaces occupied by his body while he walks. He becomes careful not to disturb the wholeness of things in the environment. This shows his concern to the protection of environment.
The poet suggests that if human being involves to encourage the existence of the nature, the nature also gives reaction. For example, if we cut down the forest, land erosion, flood, landslides occur. Then, men get knowledge from the nature that the nature itself is powerful rather from human beings. Even if man tries to challenge the existence of the nature, he can’t get victory over it. So, the poet becomes very much sensitive for the delicate balance of the nature. –
The last stanza suggests that we all move to make a whole, not part. The poet moves forward and he parts the air but it becomes whole again. So, what we think of being parted i.e; that is wrong. Everything in the world is whole.

Alternatively,

Keeping things Whole

In the poem the poet pleads foe organicity and the wholeness of nature. He believes in the organic unity and is against the fragmentation. The poet argues for the wholeness against the fragmentation that goes on in life. He believes in the whole part and not in partiality.
As the poet says, wherever he is, what is missing there that means he doesn’t want to fragment or part anything while moving. So in a field he becomes the absence of that field. Even when he parts the air while moving ,the air always moves in to fill the space where his body had been.
Human beings are always in the habit of lacking of the thing in nature as the different parts and one complete organic whole .They forget everything in the nature is related to every other thing .The poet suggest that we should rather support the wholeness of nature against it’s fragmentation.