Natural Phenomena

In the poem, the speaker argues to allow things to be as they are without assigning symbolic meaning. In this way, all the natural phenomena listed in the poem (including thunder, a barking dog, a child's play, and a night bird's cry) don't symbolize anything beyond what they are.

Clouds and Dust

Clouds and dust symbolize a dynamic and ever-changing form. While questioning who can read the world, the speaker describes the world as being composed of "paragraphs / of cloud and alphabets of dust" (10-11). Despite having argued thus far for only having a literal perspective, here the poet departs slightly from her insistence on the literal nature of things.