2005B FRQ #1

Post date: Dec 03, 2013 9:38:30 PM

(Suggested time— 40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.)

Carefully read the two poems below. Then in a well-organized essay compare the speakers’ reflections on their early morning surroundings and analyze the techniques the poets use to communicate the speakers’ different states of mind.

Five A.M.

Five Flights Up

1 Still dark, the early morning breathes

a soft sound above the fire. Hooded

lights on porches lead past lawns,

a hedge; I pass the house of the couple

5 who have the baby, the yard with the little

dog; my feet pad and grit on the pavement, flicker

past streetlights; my arms alternate

easily to my pace. Where are my troubles?

There are people in every country who never

10 turn into killers, saints have built

sanctuaries on islands and in valleys,

conquerors have quit and gone home, for thousands

of years farmers have worked their fields.

My feet begin the uphill curve

15 where a thicket spills with birds every spring.

The air doesn’t stir. Rain touches my face.

1 Still dark.

The unknown bird sits on his usual branch.

The little dog next door barks in his sleep

inquiringly, just once.

5 Perhaps in his sleep, too, the bird inquires

once or twice, quavering.

Questions—if that is what they are—

answered directly, simply,

by day itself.

10 Enormous morning, ponderous, meticulous;

gray light streaking each bare branch,

each single twig, along one side,

making another tree, of glassy veins . . .

The bird still sits there. Now he seems to yawn.

15 The little black dog runs in his yard.

His owner’s voice arises, stern,

“You ought to be ashamed!”

What has he done?

He bounces cheerfully up and down;

20 he rushes in circles in the fallen leaves.

Obviously, he has no sense of shame.

He and the bird know everything is answered,

all taken care of,

no need to ask again.

25 —Yesterday brought to today so lightly!

(A yesterday I find almost impossible to lift.)