There are only sixteen words in this poem. Yet, the image that they create behind our eyes and in our mind is striking for its clarity and tangibility. In my head, itâs in technicolor. Clean and essential, these few lines give way to a whole lot of different emotions and sensations that almost inexplicably invade us. The poem is as simple as the object it describes in the last three stanzas: as if the words were objects themselves and could have, in our minds, the same purpose that the wheelbarrow has in the mind of the speaker, and each element of the poem is indispensable. Even what is not said has its value, in that it creates breathing space and allows our imagination to wander among the lines, in the blank spaces between the stanzas, around the solitary words that embody the second line of each stanza. It is in those words - âbarrowâ, âwaterâ and âchickensâ - that the poem acquires that sense of realism and tangibility; it is because of those words that we believe in the honesty of the poet. There is no desperate attempt to write poetry: instead, the words flow effortlessly one after the other, and in spite of what our minds would expect after the end of each line, we are reminded that the wheel we are looking at is nothing but a part of a common tool, that rain is nothing but water, and that white, usually associated with pure beauty, is also the color of chicken feathers. Beauty can be found in the unpoetic, common, simple prose of everyday life. After reading the last line, we realise that no element is out of place, and that everything is perfectly fitting in the scene and in the poem.Â
The wheelbarrow is empty, as far as we are allowed to know, but the first stanza somehow fills it with a heavy load. It is the weight of our emotions, of our hopes, of the importance we can give to that inanimate object. So much of the meaning of the poem depends on the first two lines, as so much of our understanding of it depends on the wheelbarrow. While most of Williamsâ poems include a sense of movement, this one stands incredibly still, as if to suggest that it does not matter how hard the times we are leaving are, how chaotic our world is, or how difficult it is to stay afloat in the storm of everyday life: there is always going to be a red wheelbarrow for us to lean on, a simple object, a simple gesture that is going to soothe us with peace and relief, an anchor that will help us in our struggles.Â
When asked about the meaning of the poem Williams answered with the first line of Keatsâ Endymion - âA thing of beauty is a joy foreverâ. That beauty is ours to bestow, ours to remember, ours to cherish. Sometimes we need nothing more than a red wheelbarrow surrounded by white chickens, glazed in rain.Â
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