Reading Spahr’s poem “Gentle Now, Don’t Add to Heartache”, I thought that it cautions against allowing too much of the public world in. Hence, we remain “gentle”, to which she is referring accepting the benefits of a stream. She relates the stream to a life force; the clean water provided by a stream is a necessity that snakes its way to everyone in the world. Spahr establishes the commonality that everyone shares here: we all rely on the stream for life. The essence of life that is provided by the stream is evident in the lengthy lists that Spahr provides at the beggining sections of the poem; from the foliage and blossoming trees, to various organisms inhabiting the stream, Spahr clearly defines the positive aspects of this “life force” stream on which everyone relies. She states that we enjoy these aspects of the stream, and very positively revels in the beauty that the stream provides.
However, as the poem progresses (people begin to age), she starts listing negative things that come along with the stream. She stops listing natural and lively occurrences and opts for material and worldly items. I think what she means to do in this section is note that everyone who takes part in the life force stream has the capability of contaminating it; it is possible to take us away from the beautiful, natural and simple pleasures of life by contaminating the stream with junk, chemicals, the manufactured and the commercial.
I believe what she means to say by “gentle now”, is to gently allow the stream to flow through us. Allow the interconnectivity between people to let you see the simple pleasures of life that everyone shares; however, we must remain cautious not to “add to the heartache”. We must be aware and wary of not letting the contaminations of worldly items pervade our lives too much and take us away from living life.
I really enjoyed your analysis of this poem. I definitely agree that Spahr’s “stream” is a symbol for the stream of everyone’s lives flowing together. What I found the most interesting and Whitmanian in this poem was section four, where Spahr offers readers a moment of crisis in terms of this stream of life. She writes, “It was not all long lines of connection and utopia.” Here I think she is saying that this interconnectivity we share in the stream of life is not always positive. She goes onto explain how people contaminate the stream through material things like soda cans and cigarettes, but I think she metaphorically is describing how human nature is not always going to flow perfectly together into one harmonious stream.