Offerings, Hilary Tham

From reading the title the reader’s expects the poem is a description of something given to someone. Generally “offerings” refers to someone who is important or a religious figure.

The poem is made up of three quatrains and a five lines stanza. The speaking voice is in first person.

The poem describes the action of giving someone something. It even describes the part of the day, the offer and the behaviour of the “protagonist”, aspects different in each quatrain.

Every line of each stanza starts with the same construction.

The poem wants to describe the refusal of someone, probably someone who the speaking voice loves, as we can understand from the words flowers, blossoms, petals, danced...

Each stanza represents a different part of the day, and adjectives and feelings follow it.

So in the first quatrain there is “sunrise” related with “silvery” (something not very bright) and “sleeping”.

In the second one there is “midday” related with “bright”, ”flaming” and “ardent”, in the third one “sunset” with “pale” and in the last one “midnight” with  “cold”.

All this coincides with the behaviours a person may have when tries to court a person and at last he is refused (initial joy and excitement, apex of passion, delusion and total desperation).