s into the sea to see the dead after the war and the emotionless faces looking at him. Then he realizes he is about to die and goes up to the surface, almost too late. Only, to see miles and miles of calm ocean. The war was no longer in his sight. This poem is about how he realizes that the war is over and he can go home to forget about the war. But when he tries he remembers the dead for one more time before he can have peace with himself.I picked two poems of James Dickey’s to analyze, the first one is called ‘Sled Burial, Dream Ceremony’. This poem is about a dead Southerner that is being brought to the North for his burial. When he arrives on a train it is snowing. He is taken off the train by a group of men and women. The casket is open and one man sticks his hand inside and places the Southerner’s hand over his heart. They load him up on a sled drawn by horses. They pull him through town where they pass bushes, barns, and houses with kids looking out the window crying. They take him past some ice fishing houses and stop in the middle of a large frozen body of water. They cut out of the lake, a piece of ice as large as the casket. They place him in the water with the casket still open. A fish swims by as they are doing so. His casket floats for a little while like a ship bobbing in the water. Then it sinks to a watery grave. I do not understand why a Southerner would want to be buried in the North, and in the water with his casket open? Why doesn't he want to be buried in the South, or at least in the ground? This poem is a dream according to the text before the poem in our textbook called Elements of Literature. Who though would dream that they were being buried in the north when they are from the South, in a body of water, and in an open casket? The last line of the poem it says, “On utter foreignness, before he fills and sails down.” (Anderson et al. 1112). I believe tha...
