Louise Kertesz: On "Absalom"
"Absalom" is spoken by a mother who has lost three sons to silicosis and whose husband is dying of it. Hee narrative lines ("I had three sons who worked with their father in the tunnel") are interrupted by rhythmic lyric lines in which individual maternal strength is connected with the universal power of regeneration:
I open out a way, they have covered my sky with crystal
I come forth by day, I am born a second time,
I force a way through, and I know the gate
I shall journey over the earth among the living.