Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.
Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.
When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.
Rich connects Aunt Jennifer’s creation and creativity to a certain freedom and immortality; her tigers are a made thing that required hours of work in a craft, needlepoint, normally associated with women. In contrast, Rich is working in poetry at a time (1951) when there were far fewer women than men in the field. Her creation, this poem, is a lot like needlepoint in that it took hours to create (it is in rhyming iambic pentameter, an elaborate pattern, or “weave”), expresses a kind of freedom, and gives her immortality too. (Rich passed away in 2012.)
Aunt Jennifers Tigers