“Sestina” by Elizabeth Bishop was such a sad poem to read and kind of reminded me of “Spring and Fall” by Hopkins, as both poems touch upon the saddening loss of a child’s innocence. In the poem, readers are informed that the grandmother is hiding something sad from the child, possibly to protect the child’s innocence. She conceals her sadness by “reading the jokes from the almanac, / laughing and talking to hide her tears” (lines 5-6). Almanacs are typically collections of stored data generally about the weather, astronomy, etc., usually presented in the order of a calendar. I thought that it was odd for her to be telling jokes from a book that is intended to be informational. Therefore, I interpreted the almanac have a deeper meaning actually representing a collection of the grandmother’s stored memories throughout her lifetime, good and bad. By her reading jokes from the book, it seems as though she is reminiscing about her past telling only the good memories to the child and avoiding the tragic event that is making her sad. The repetition of “tears” and the “rain” seem to represent the emotion of sadness and the house is also a source of protection to keep the child away from the rain, or the sadness. 

In the second stanza it is interesting how the grandmother feels that the period of sadness is determined by the almanac, but she knows this only because she has lived for a while and no longer has the innocence of a child. This idea is similar to the cyclic cycle of nature where winter comes every year often representing death, loss, or darkness in “Spring and Fall.” 

The personification of the “teakettle sing[ing]” and the rain and tears dancing shows that the darkness cannot stay hidden from the child forever. Their singing and dancing grabs the child’s attention and the child can’t help but watch (lines 13-16). As the child watches the “tears” fall down the kettle and hears the beat of the rain on the roof, the darkness is revealed to the child, even if the child doesn’t fully understand what it means. This idea is also seen when the grandmother hangs the almanac, which I interpreted her to do to keep out of the child’s reach. However, “…the almanac hover[ed] half open above the child, / hover[ed] above the old grandmother / and her teacup full of dark brown tears” (lines 20-22). The truth will come out as time goes on and the child’s innocence cannot be protected forever. As the book hovered open over the child, the content of the almanac was exposed to the child in which we can see the child express through the drawings. “She shivers and says she thinks the house / feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove,” shows that the grandmother didn’t even notice that the book was hanging open which also portrays how the grandmother can’t protect the child forever. The child will find out even if the grandmother does’t actually tell the child herself. The hovering book seems to also create this darkness, or even quite literally a shadow, making everything underneath it darker. Being in the shadow seems to also make the room colder just as being exposed to darkness creates a chilling feeling. 

As the child tries to show the grandmother his drawings, the grandmother ignores the child by “bus[ing] herself about the stove” (32).  The grandmother is clearly ignoring whatever the issue is thinking that it will just go away, but this is not true as the “child draws another inscrutable house” (39). Although the issue is not quite clear to the child as represented by his drawings, he has been exposed and will only continue to learn more losing his innocence.