Picnic to the Earth Faiz Ahmed Faiz

¶ … Picnic to the Earth

Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Shuntaro Tanikawa illustrate the transforming power of love as it is experienced through everyday occurrences. Faiz and Shuntaro express on how being in love has changed them by focusing on very personal, yet common experiences. By relating their transformation through such experiences, they are establishing the truly powerful effects of love. Through vivid imagery, each poet demonstrates how love adds life and excitement experiences to their life.

In "Before You Came," we realize how the poet has been transformed by his lover's presence. Before his lover arrived, we know that things were simply as they were in the poet's life. In other words, things were rather plain and ordinary. The poet states that the "road was just a road, wine merely wine" (Faiz 4). After poet meets his lover, he states that "everything is like my heart" (5), meaning that everything is full of life. Similarly, the poet in "Picnic to the Earth" notices that his lover's eyes reflect the "blueness of the sky" (4) and her back will resemble the color of "stained wormwood green" (5). Similarly, the poet in "Picnic to the Earth" wants to enjoy everyday experiences with his lover. He wants to do simple things like jump rope and eat balls of rice together because the experience is that much better with his lover.

Each poet understands how the feeling of love is bigger than just two people. It is interesting to note that the poet in "Before You Came" not only applies this notion to all aspects of life -- good and bad. The love he is experiencing is so strong that when the lovers are not present, things are "gray" (7) like the color of poison and thorns. In addition, the things they experience together are enhanced by love. For instance, we read that autumn is a season that is "ablaze" (8) with yellow and red colors that resemble fire. This sentiment illustrates how the poet feels as though his love encompasses not only his life but also the world around him.

In "Picnic to the Earth," we find that the poet wishes to make time stand still. He tells his lover that as they will "let the night be drawn away" (Tanikawa 12) and he will "keep saying; "I am back'" (13), while his lover welcomes him home. He wants to experience the moment with his lover and be "blown by the cooling breeze" (18) as if to make it last forever. These images illustrate how each poet understands that love may be an emotion but it is a transforming emotion that alters life.

To bring even more definition to what he is experiencing, the poet in "Before You Came" says, that the sky which was just previously a sky is now more alive and resembles a "shirt wet with tears" (Faiz 13) and the road is so alive that it reminds him of a "vein about to break" (14). Additionally, a glass of wine is like a "mirror in which/the sky, the road the world keep changing" (16). These images are powerful because they illustrate how love has not only changed the way the poet views things around him, but changed them to the point that they are bursting with life and energy.