I Am Offering This Poem

Metaphors compare unlike things or ideas without using "like" or "as" to do so. Baca’s poem compares the poem itself with several physical necessities and, in so doing, creates vivid sensory imagery for the reader. In the third stanza, he says the poem “is a pot full of yellow corn” (Line 9). This image encompasses four of the five senses, evoking the smell and taste of starchy corn, the visual of the yellow vegetable in the pot, and its texture and temperature. 

Next, Baca writes the poem “is a scarf for your head, to wear / over your hair, to tie up around your face [...]” (Line 11-12). Like coats and socks, scarves keep people warm during cold months. The speaker lingers over this metaphor with additional description, seeming to imagine his beloved’s hair and the secure scarf around their face in a moment of loving reverie. 

In the fifth stanza, the speaker references “the wilderness life becomes when mature [...]” (Line 16). With age, life becomes more complex and, as Baca indicates, can be difficult to navigate. He offers the poem as a map or compass in these years of difficulty and confusion. In the same stanza, he calls the poem “this fire […]” (Line 21). He invokes fire to capture the poem’s warmth and comfort when his beloved feels lost. 

Like metaphors, similes compare unlike things, but similes use "like" or "as" to create their comparisons. Baca describes the poem “like a warm coat” (Line 3) and “like a pair of thick socks” (Line 5) in the first stanza. These cozy items both comfort his beloved and shield her against the cold weather that threatens to “bite through” (Line 6) her clothes. 

The speaker also charges his beloved to “treasure this as you would / if you were lost [...]” (Lines 14-15). Again, the poem helps the beloved in harsh conditions. He goes on to describe the deep forest where the beloved may lose their way; there, the poem will be a kind of salvation. He says the poem is “tucked away like a cabin or hogan / in dense trees” (Lines 18-19). A hogan is a Navajo dwelling, similar to a cabin. The poem is a refuge amidst a bewildering environment, as a welcoming home might be to a lost traveler.