Transformation

The poem's main theme is transformation. In the beginning, the poem talks about "that day," picking one day out of the multitude of days in the natural, daily cycle. This day, as the poem increasingly makes clear, is the day that precedes a new type of day, a day that explodes into being. This is a sharp contrast to the beginning of the poem, where Nature is depicted as a wounded beast, who submits to binding itself to a tree. The concept of binding is significant, because it implies that somebody is a prisoner, or at least does not have freedom of movement. This idea works well with the other concepts that Hébert develops in the poem, such as the use of sounds. In the beginning, all is silent. The Grecian urns placed on top of the sisters' heads are "quiet," as is their processional frieze...