“Absences” by Donald Justice is entirely dependent on the setting for the imagery that is key to the meaning of the poem to be effective. The sound of falling snow is easily pictured as the tinkling of the keys on a piano, or a dress being placed down. There is a graceful quality in each of these images, yet there is a nostalgic feeling evoked from them, as a certain memory of the speaker’s connects them in his or her mind. While the memory itself is not described in great detail, the images are, which makes the poem stand on its own. The reader realizes that the memories themselves must not be important to the meaning, but the poem is meant to evoke the reader’s own memories, as the images are universal. However, the poem takes an eerie turn at the end of the poem that indicates that perhaps the speaker’s childhood memories had not all been “quiet and remote”, but instead had resembled the “terrible scales descending / On the silent snow; and the absent flowers / abounding.” Perhaps the speaker is simply referring only to the fact that the memories are already falling away in that manner, but it is up to the interpretation of the reader, especially since this poem requires the reader to come to life in its own way. This is much like the remainder of Justice’s verse, which was noted for its formal control, depth of insight, and limpid, elegiac lines, according to PoetryFoundation.org.

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