17 pages • 34 minutes read
Ballad
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Symbols & Motifs
Rain
In the second stanza of “Ballad,” Sanchez lists what love is, first with the following: “the rain exploding / in the air is love” (Lines 5-6). The mention of rain suggests a natural element, one that provokes a negative or positive reaction. Rain is necessary to bring life to flowers, grass, and more, but too much can cause a flood, or even a melancholic mood. The word “exploding” intensifies the rain, making it closer to a storm, or even fireworks. The intensity implies that the feeling of love is overwhelming, almost to the point that it will burst at any moment because something at that level of intensity cannot sustain itself without causing damage. In the third stanza, the speaker reveals that she knew of love “once” (Line 14), suggesting that the level of intensity could not last yet produced lasting effects: “went / to sleep in love / all trace of me / was wiped away” (Lines 18-21).
Stones and Steps
In the second stanza of “Ballad,” Sanchez continues to list what love is: “and stones remembering / past steps is love” (Lines 9-10). With this figurative line, Sanchez empowers the stones to remember previous experiences of love. If a person’s footsteps can leave an imprint, then those imprints can become a memory for the ground to recall where the person went and when. The stones remember, and so does the speaker, as she recalls in the third stanza her one-time experience of love. The memories of this experience are fuzzy, as the speaker cannot recall “when or who” (Line 15). However, just as the imprints upon stones become muddied or washed away over time, so do human memories fade and morph with age. Additionally, love is often described as an action. With that in mind, the idea of love as “past steps” (Line 10) suggests that love is the accumulation of everything a person has been, every choice they have made. Love is more than just a fleeting emotion.
Heiress
In the final stanza of the poem, the speaker addresses her listener as the “young heiress of a naked dream” (Line 23). The word “heiress” implies a woman who is about to inherit something, usually great wealth. In this instance, the listener might be heiress to the fortune of romantic love, also known as “the naked dream” (Line 23). With any gift of high magnitude, there are downsides to which the speaker refers: “you are so young […] to learn of love” (Lines 24-25). Youth can make a person behave foolishly or naïvely in love; the intensity of the love might be too much to handle, along with the ramifications of the subsequent fall when love ends. In a sense, the speaker is leaving the throne to the heiress, but the speaker’s words suggest that she is hesitant to do so, knowing how it might impact the heiress. It appears as if the speaker wants to leave the throne empty to avoid suffering. The heiress is the recipient of the fortune of the speaker’s wisdom.
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