In the poem, "The old woman's message," identify at least two similes, and explain their meaning. Then, relate your chosen similes to the rest of...

Near the end of this poem, the old woman uses similes, comparisons using the words "like" or "as,"  to describe how aged she has become: she says her hands are "like broom sticks," meaning dry and stiff, while her body is "dry, like a carved image." This simile also shows how stiff and wooden her old body has gotten. A carved image is not only dry, but also can't move. She uses a yet another simile when she compares herself to "a dry falling leaf." She says she "sways" like this leaf, meaning she is unsteady on her feet. A dry falling leaf brings to mind the visual image of a leaf that is brown and stiff, and also fragile, easily crumbled. This piling up of similes that liken her to dry, stiff objects reinforces strongly how old and near to death this woman is.

In contrast, in an earlier simile,  she says her sons are "like fruit borne by birds." Birds, she says, pick up fruit that drops near the tree that bore it and carry it away. The old woman here is saying that her sons--her fruit--have moved away from her. But by calling them "fruit," she implies that they are still young: our image of the fruit birds would gather is that it is ripe and edible, not like the dry, withered "leaf" of the mother.

These similes all reinforce the poem's theme: that "fruit," sons, children, who are still young and healthy, should come to visit their aged mothers before it is too late.