Analyzing Laura Cortes 'Loneliness'

Hope in old age In "Loneliness" by Laura Cortes, the author paints a picture of a man whose family has grown up and moved on. The poem shows that a man, older and alone in the world, can still hold on to hope for the future. Cortes establishes that the man has aged considerably since “he planted the trees forty summers ago” (line 6) and “time has gone by too soon” (13). Cortes appears to be describing the old man from when he began his family, perhaps when he may have married and began having children forty summers ago. "He talks to them once in a while/ but he would never leave them alone" (lines 7-8). As his family has grown up, they have moved away, he talks to his children from time to time and allows them to live their lives.