'In The Park' by Gwen Harwood
...s aimless patterns in the dirt” is significant as it mirrors the manner of the mother, isolated and reserved. The first stanza links to the second by enjambment, with the purpose of speeding the metre and in effect, depicting the ability of change to work fast and unpredictably. This change is in the self of the woman, who erratically presents herself and her life to a man she encounters who she once loved, as a vivacious and content mother, completely contrasting the impression and the reality the responders interpret in the previous stanza. She is humiliated by the meeting but it is “too late to feign indifference to that causal nod”, and her regret increases as the meaninglessness of their conversation, which is obvious in the abbreviated phrases and the use of “et cetera”, reveals the revulsion of the man in her appearance, bearing and self-esteem, and his relief to thus not be apart of her life anymore. His unspoken thoughts prove this. In this stanza it is also implied that the man has not been wounded by change as the mother has been, and although she strives to convince the man of the happiness and fulfilment of motherhood, her exterior cannot be concealed and thus it is observable that the woman is entrapped by the toils of motherhood and that her identity is lessened and dispirited, demonstrating the likely negative changes to oneself if unable to adapt to change in life. The fact that the poem is in sonnet form indicates that the love of the woman towards the man was unrequited, as such a structure is most often communicates this message. The conversation persists into the last stanza and both burden hypocritical statements; the man when he asks for the names and ages of the children, and the woman when she says “It’s so ...