September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac
laughing and talking to hide her tears.
This quote is the first stanza of the poem in its entirety. It is quoted in full here to demonstrate how Bishop establishes the ingredients for the sestina form within the poem's opening lines. A sestina contains six sestets, or six-line stanzas, followed by a tercet, or three-line stanza—but it is the first of these sestets that sets the terms for the rest. In a sestina, the concluding word of each line in the opening stanza will reappear as a concluding word in each of the other stanzas—but in a different place, according to a strict pattern. In other words, "house," "grandmother," "child," "stove," "almanac," and "tears," the words that end each of the above lines, will also end every line throughout the rest of the poem, but in a new order. These repeated words guide us through the poem, pointing us to its most important themes and motifs: sorrow, the routines of domesticity, and the grandmother/grandchild relationship.
It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
One distinctive element of this poem is its use of personification. Some of the objects mentioned in the opening stanza will be, by the poem's end, granted a kind of sentient existence. The sestina form enables and gives shape to these shifts. As words are repeated (words such as "stove" and "almanac") they build up new meanings and associations, in this case becoming fully animated by the latter stanzas of the poem. This use of personification can be understood as a way to dive into characters' psyches while still maintaining the poem's restrained, distant point of view. Bishop mimics the child character's imaginative understanding of the world by bringing inanimate objects to life, but refrains from fully delving into the child's perspective.
Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.
In the closing tercet of a sestina, all six of the poem's repeated words are brought together in the space of just three lines. Here, this creates the sense of an unchanging tableau, with all of the scenes and actions of the poem brought together into a single lasting image—the grandmother and grandchild continuing with their domestic routines, plowing ahead with their respective tasks. However, Bishop also uses these lines to give us a preview of the ways these two characters will continue to cope with the events of their past. The reference to "planting" tears suggests that sorrow and grief, like plants, are cyclical, and will simply become a recurring element of this family's life. The switch from the brand name "Marvel" to the adjective "marvelous," meanwhile, alongside the grandmother's singing, hints at how subtle acts of care and imagination (rather than outright, open conversation) will continue to shape the grandmother/grandchild relationship. Finally, the word "inscrutable" tells us that the child's psyche is ultimately a mystery, impossible to fully communicate.
