Light versus Darkness

A career-long theme for Stern was that of light versus darkness, that this natural contrast or conflict is inherently important to humans in both a biological and an emotional way. “One of the Smallest” incorporates light and darkness with life, death, and rebirth. The narrator of the poem says that light “was what gave me life in the first place,” and Stern makes this connection between light and life throughout the poem. In lines 9–11, he asserts that the plants and animals need sunlight. In the same way, the narrator needs sunlight so much that he tears down walls and cuts down trees to get more of it. Stern describes a scene in which the narrator is soaking up the sun outdoors by sunbathing and swimming. The implication is that his energy and his joy come from the sunlight. However, the sun...