--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: After the Grand Perhaps” After vespers…" description: "\"“After the Grand Perhaps” After vespers, after the first snow has fallen to its squalls, after New Wave, after the anorexics have curled into their geo..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/bff/lucie-brock-broido-29215_elementary-school_after-the-grand-perhaps-after-vespers-af_3125253.jpg" --- # After the Grand Perhaps” After vespers, after the first… ![“After the Grand Perhaps” After vespers, after the first snow has fallen to its squalls, after New Wave, after the anorexics have curled into their geometric forms, after the man with the apparition in his one bad eye has done red things behind the curtain of the lid & sleeps, after the fallout…” quote by Lucie Brock-Broido](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/bff/lucie-brock-broido-29215_elementary-school_after-the-grand-perhaps-after-vespers-af_3125253.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/bff/lucie-brock-broido-29215_elementary-school_after-the-grand-perhaps-after-vespers-af_3125253.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/bff/lucie-brock-broido-29215_elementary-school_after-the-grand-perhaps-after-vespers-af_3125253.jpg) > ““After the Grand Perhaps” After vespers, after the first snow has fallen to its squalls, after New Wave, after the anorexics have curled into their geometric forms, after the man with the apparition in his one bad eye has done red things behind the curtain of the lid & sleeps, after the fallout shelter in the elementary school has been packed with tins & other tangibles, after the barn boys have woken, startled by foxes & fire, warm in their hay, every part of them blithe & smooth & touchable, after the little vandals have tilted toward the impossible seduction to smash glass in the dark, getting away with the most lethal pieces, leaving the shards which travel most easily through flesh as message on the bathroom floor, the parking lots, the irresistible debris of the neighbor’s yard where he’s been constructing all winter long. After the pain has become an old known friend, repeating itself, you can hold on to it. The power of fright, I think, is as much as magnetic heat or gravity. After what is boundless: wind chimes, fertile patches of the land, the ochre symmetry of fields in fall, the end of breath, the beginning of shadow, the shadow of heat as it moves the way the night heads west, I take this road to arrive at its end where the toll taker passes the night, reading. I feel the cupped heat of his left hand as he inherits change; on the road that is not his road anymore I belong to whatever it is which will happen to me. When I left this city I gave back the metallic waking in the night, the signals of barges moving coal up a slow river north, the movement of trains, each whistle like a woodwind song of another age passing, each ambulance would split a night in two, lying in bed as a little girl, a fear of being taken with the sirens as they lit the neighborhood in neon, quick as the fire as it takes fire & our house goes up in night. After what is arbitrary: the hand grazing something too sharp or fine, the word spoken out of sleep, the buckling of the knees to cold, the melting of the parts to want, the design of the moon to cast unfriendly light, the dazed shadow of the self as it follows the self, the toll taker’s sorrow that we couldn’t have been more intimate. Which leads me back to the land, the old wolves which used to roam on it, the one light left on the small far hill where someone must be living still. After life there must be life.”” [Lucie Brock-Broido](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lucie-brock-broido/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. The poem strings together fleeting moments and sensory details, suggesting that after countless experiences, one can cling to pain as a familiar companion, and that fear and awe are as powerful as natural forces. **In simple terms:** After many events, pain becomes familiar; fear feels like gravity. Key Takeaway Embrace the familiar pain, recognize fear’s power. Themes memory pain fear nature transience Mood melancholic introspective Type poetic philosophical When to use this quote - grief counseling - creative writing - nighttime contemplation - urban exploration Key Concepts existential reflection sensory imagery Questions to Reflect On - What does the “pain” symbolize for you? - How do you experience fear as a force? A Different Perspective The dense imagery may obscure the core message for some readers. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Elementary school](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/elementary-school/) [Fear](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/fear/) [First snow](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/first-snow/) [Little girl](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/little-girl/) [Night](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/night/) [Sorrow](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/sorrow/) [Wind Chimes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/wind-chimes/) ## Related quotes > [“I turn and walk back to the home shore whose tall yellow bluffs still bare of snow I can see nearly half a mile…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/john-meade-haines/i-turn-and-walk-back-to-the-home-shore-whose-tall-yellow-bluffs-still/) John Meade Haines > [“With daylight (it was exactly a week since he last dressed for the office) he found himself passing through farmland over which a light…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/douglas-woolf/with-daylight-it-was-exactly-a-week-since-he-last-dressed-for-the/) [Douglas Woolf](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/douglas-woolf/) > [The snow, which had fallen quietly at first, was now pelting against the windowpanes, driven by a wicked wind; the storm was rapidly assuming…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/frances-parkinson-keyes/the-snow-which-had-fallen-quietly-at-first-was-now-pelting-against/) [Frances Parkinson Keyes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/frances-parkinson-keyes/) > [“Is everything all right, ladies?” Sabrina whirled to face both men as they dismounted. “Oh, my, yes. 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That withholding, that white space, the pressure, and my long-term faith in violent concision, is still with me.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lucie-brock-broido/that-s-what-interests-me-in-poetry-that-withholding-that-white-space/) [Lucie Brock-Broido](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lucie-brock-broido/) > [I am fascinated with criminal law because it is as rigorous as a poem and because it is based on what has been written…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lucie-brock-broido/i-am-fascinated-with-criminal-law-because-it-is-as-rigorous-as-a-poem/) [Lucie Brock-Broido](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lucie-brock-broido/) > [Let me just say that the politics that I have are never the politics of poetics. I am not interested in politics. Politically, I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lucie-brock-broido/let-me-just-say-that-the-politics-that-i-have-are-never-the-politics/) [Lucie Brock-Broido](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lucie-brock-broido/) > [Every thing is changing every minute.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lucie-brock-broido/every-thing-is-changing-every-minute/) [Lucie Brock-Broido](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lucie-brock-broido/) > [I think American is very democratic in allowing different hues of language and parts of speech to commingle. William Logan once wrote that I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lucie-brock-broido/i-think-american-is-very-democratic-in-allowing-different-hues-of/) [Lucie Brock-Broido](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lucie-brock-broido/) > [“One lung, smaller, congested with rose smoke. The other, filled with a swarm of massive sentimentia.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lucie-brock-broido/one-lung-smaller-congested-with-rose-smoke-the-other-filled-with-a/) [Lucie Brock-Broido](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lucie-brock-broido/) > [I wanted many of the poems to have long legs. At first I was calling them clothespin poems, before I knew what I was…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lucie-brock-broido/i-wanted-many-of-the-poems-to-have-long-legs-at-first-i-was-calling/) [Lucie Brock-Broido](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lucie-brock-broido/) > [I came to poetry because I felt I couldn't live properly in the real world.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lucie-brock-broido/i-came-to-poetry-because-i-felt-i-couldn-t-live-properly-in-the-real/) [Lucie Brock-Broido](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lucie-brock-broido/) [Explore all 18 Lucie Brock-Broido quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lucie-brock-broido/) ## More Elementary school quotes > [My mother grew up in abject poverty in Mississippi, an elementary school dropout. 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After the pain has become an old known friend, repeating itself, you can hold on to it. The power of fright, I think, is as much as magnetic heat or gravity. After what is boundless: wind chimes, fertile patches of the land, the ochre symmetry of fields in fall, the end of breath, the beginning of shadow, the shadow of heat as it moves the way the night heads west, I take this road to arrive at its end where the toll taker passes the night, reading. I feel the cupped heat of his left hand as he inherits change; on the road that is not his road anymore I belong to whatever it is which will happen to me. When I left this city I gave back the metallic waking in the night, the signals of barges moving coal up a slow river north, the movement of trains, each whistle like a woodwind song of another age passing, each ambulance would split a night in two, lying in bed as a little girl, a fear of being taken with the sirens as they lit the neighborhood in neon, quick as the fire as it takes fire & our house goes up in night. After what is arbitrary: the hand grazing something too sharp or fine, the word spoken out of sleep, the buckling of the knees to cold, the melting of the parts to want, the design of the moon to cast unfriendly light, the dazed shadow of the self as it follows the self, the toll taker’s sorrow that we couldn’t have been more intimate. Which leads me back to the land, the old wolves which used to roam on it, the one light left on the small far hill where someone must be living still. 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