100 Poetry for Students
brightness usually indicates hope and optimism, a
goal that one can see beyond the dismal present. In
line 12 the berries that are dying at the time of the
poem are fresh and new, “the first of the season—
all looks encouraging for her plans to reap the
bounty of the land and to capture the sweetness that
is just beginning in jars or cans, so that they can
not only see it, or experience it, but keep it too.Line 13:
This is only the second time that anyone in this
poem speaks—the first is in line 2, when they chil-
dren ask “Truly?” with just as much optimism
about leaving as the mother had about arriving. It
is only in this line, when the woman is most en-
thusiastic about life, that anyone in the poem is
given an identity. When she looked forward to what
life would bring them at the new location, he was
“Tom,” but when they are leaving after a few
months without having improved their lives at all
she knows better than to think that their lives will
be any better in the new place. Her mind is so dead-
ened that in the present she does not even think of
him by name anymore, as if “Tom” were someone
from a different time, with whom she wanted to
share life, and not the man that she blindly, reluc-
tantly follows.Themes
Permanence
“Drifters” is about a family that regularly
packs all of their worldly belongings into their car,
driving off to a new home. In the scene presented
here, the mother, anticipating the pattern, imagines
that they will not stay at their latest location for the
tomato harvest to ripen in the garden. She knows
that the odds are great that the father can come
home and announce at any time that “it’s time to
start packing.” There is no evidence to show why
they have to leave, whether it is because of his job,
or legal complications, or just because he is the type
of person who likes to change addresses often.
There is also no evidence that anyone in the fam-
ily expects any more stability to life than theirs of-
fers. The oldest girl is displeases because she has
been happy where they are, and the mother appears
to be vaguely dissatisfied about leaving her garden
crop unfinished, but the basic idea of having a per-
manent address does not seem to enter into their
thoughts. These are people who do not know what
permanence is and cannot imagine what it wouldbe like, who only have a general feeling that it
would be better to linger at any place a little longer
than they do.Cycle of Life
’For the woman in this poem, time is measured
by the blackberries that grow at the end of the road.
She remembers that the first berries of the season
had just ripened when the family arrived, filling her
with hope, prompting her to tell the man to “Make
a wish” in anticipation of a better life to come. She
expects him to want to leave before the end of
blackberry season, her withered hopes symbolized
by the unripe fruit that is left to ripen on the vine
and rot. There is another method used to measure
both the length of time that the family has been in
one place and the hope that they had and then lost;
the vegetable patch, where, unlike the blackberries,
fruit was cultivated by the family when they ar-
rived. The tomatoes there are green, not having
been given a full cycle to mature, but the woman
is willing to pick them prematurely, to cut them
down like her hopes, before they reach their fullest
potential. Without the plant-growing cycle to mea-
sure how long they have been in one place, the
woman’s disappointment about having to leave so
soon would be nothing but a vague sense of dis-
content; when held up against the cycle of life, her
feelings become much more real for readers.Loyalty
This poem raises the question of why, if she is
so dissatisfied with the life that the man forces her
family to leave, this woman does not just leave and
pursue a life that would make her happy. One an-
swer might be that she is bound by social conven-
tion, that whether they are married or not society
would still judge her harshly if she left. This social
pressure would not, however, be as strongly felt in
a family of drifters as it would be felt in a stable
situation. An even stronger motive for her loyalty
is presented at the very end of the poem, where the
woman is shown sharing her hope for the future
with the man. When she says, “Make a wish, Tom,”
it is clear that the future looks bright to her, and
that she wants him to experience that same feeling.
The poem does not record his response, whether he
felt the same way she felt upon arriving, but the
important thing is that she thought, if only for a
short time, that she could stir in him the believe
that life was going to be better. When she antici-
pates his plans, the poem explains, “she won’t even
ask why they’re leaving this time or where they’re
headed for.” In spite of her disappointment, she isDrifters