Have you ever had feelings toward an inanimate object, either for nostalgic reasons or purely because of preference? That object can sometimes seem as though it has a personality of its own and there exists a seemingly dynamic relationship between you and it because of the attachment you feel. This is precisely what Clare Rossini describes in her poem, "Final Love Note". Rossini uses vivid imagery and word choice to personify the old elm tree outside her room as a lost lover.
             In the first stanza, the speaker relates her past with her love. It seems that their relationship has been brief, but purely passionate. The speaker states "for months we've been together, hardly wanton never touching" (1-2). Although the speaker claims their relationship is chaste, the next several images hardly sound so. The speaker's use of words like "commingled", "strewn", and "moaned" in lines 2-4 make the scene of the meeting of these lovers seem specially erotic. It is not until line 5 that we are given any indication that this lover is not human. The speaker states that her lover "moaned over [her] at night, never tiring as human lovers do" (4-5). The speaker describes her lover as "my lifted garden pure-green, wooden-hearted" (5-6). Each of these adjectives describing her lover can have two meanings. The surface meanings are indicative of a tree, while the allusions that exist there point toward more abstract qualities. The phrase "lifted garden" can mean literally a mass of plant life stretched or lifted in to the air. However, the phrase also alludes to the Garden of Eden, which according to Christian lore was a perfect place that was lifted out of the world and placed on top of the mountain in purgatory to protect it from corruption. If this allusion is taken into consideration, the speaker is saying that this lover, or tree, is her paradise. T...