Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “If God Won’t Take Me Why Won’t the Devil?’; Great-Great-Aunt Leonora” is an intimate reflection on mortality, love, and the irreverent persistence of life. Through a mix of tenderness, humor, and resignation, the poem captures the presence of an elderly relative—Great-Great-Aunt Leonora—who both acknowledges her impending death and defies it with an unshaken spirit. The poem's tone balances sorrow with wry wit, presenting death not as something to be feared, but as an inevitable transition that one might even long for yet struggle to meet.

The opening lines set the scene with an act of care: “We stroke your hands to make you smile, reduced, reduced.” The repetition of “reduced” suggests both physical frailty and a shrinking presence, a life distilled to its final stage. The speaker’s desire to help her die “like a present” is striking—death is imagined not as an absence, but as something to be given, perhaps as a release or a relief. The idea of “carrying” her over the threshold conjures images of both birth and departure, as if death is another form of passage that requires guidance and support. This longing for a dignified and graceful death contrasts with the reality of waiting, with neither God nor the Devil claiming her.

Yet, despite her proximity to death, Leonora maintains a playful irreverence. She advises the speaker to “have more fun,” recognizing that people “just don’t have enough of it.” This line is key to her character—she does not sink into self-pity but instead offers a lesson in living, even from the edge of death. She also imparts a darker truth, promising the speaker’s son that “each young and beautiful one will also die.” This moment, both blunt and inevitable, forces the child into a confrontation with mortality. The phrase “Think of me then” suggests Leonora’s desire to be remembered as a figure who embraced life even while facing its end. The son’s reaction—freezing in the act of cranking the bed—reflects the weight of this realization, a child momentarily arrested by the vastness of time and loss.

A flashback to a birthday at Canyon Lake introduces one of the poem’s most striking images. Leonora had gone fishing instead of keeping a planned date, leaving the speaker pacing in fear that she had died. When she finally returns, grinning and carrying a bucket with a fish, her response—“No such luck. The fish is dead, not I.”—is both morbid and triumphant. This moment encapsulates her defiance of death, her ability to exist in a space where she expects it yet continuously eludes it. Her amusement at the irony highlights her resilience, her refusal to be taken easily.

The poem’s final movement shifts to the sky outside her room, where blue waves wash over—a symbolic contrast to the “sour air” of the confined space. This transition suggests release, an opening beyond the claustrophobia of waiting for death. The speaker participates in this release, “shaking [her] fist at the sky, loving [her], casting [her] back.” This final image is deeply moving: shaking a fist suggests both frustration and devotion, an unwillingness to let go but also a recognition that Leonora belongs to something larger, something beyond. To “cast” her back suggests she is like the fish from her birthday story—returned to the unknown, to the vastness of life’s cycle, whether she is claimed by God, the Devil, or simply the sky itself.

The poem’s title, with its darkly humorous plea—“If God Won’t Take Me Why Won’t the Devil?”—frames Leonora as a figure caught between realms, suspended between acceptance and resistance. She is neither saintly nor damned, but fiercely present, existing in the liminal space between life and death with a spirit that refuses to be extinguished.

Through sharp, evocative language and shifting timeframes, Nye creates a portrait of a woman who meets mortality on her own terms. The poem does not dwell in grief; instead, it captures the paradox of someone who is waiting to die yet still fully alive. It is an elegy in advance, a recognition of both love and impermanence, a lesson in the humor and inevitability of fate.

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