Perfection Not Wasted
Everyone knows that death is the inevitable and unavoidable conclusion to life. We never know when used to measure the value and significance of our lives. Life is usually said to be a good one when we have changed someone’s life or at least left a mark. Each person brings a special quality to life that creates a unique style to the world that we live in. Unfortunately, that individualistic style and the memories of that person is what is most missed and cannot be replaced. John Updike’s “Perfection Wasted,” is a poem in which, with poetic devices, he emphasizes that other than the person itself, the vivacity a person works so hard on, is also gone. Updike’s 14 lined and single stanza poem conveys right away how a…show more content… “Their soft faces blanched / in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears, / their tears confused with their diamond earrings” (lis 6-8). The description of the faces gives us an image of all the good times and bad times people spend with their close friends, since there was laughter and there were tears. The laughter that leads to crying is powerful since when you do so, you are breaking the threshold of emotional stimuli. It was hard to understand the comparison of tears to diamond earrings at first, but we can say that diamond earrings are valuable objects as are the emotions spent with those we love. “Their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat, / their response and your performance twinned” (lis 9-10). The poet expands on the importance of this intimacy with loved ones. We obtain an image and sensation of being in sync with someone else when they laugh at one of your jokes or when you cry. That moment of perfect connection, of total understanding, is such a wonderful thing, and yet it too goes away after you are gone. No matter how many jokes you made, that same feeling of unity will never return to the people you care about, not in the exact