The Baby Clothes Symbol in Kate Baer’s And Yet: Impermanence and Maternal Loss

Introduction: A Quiet Act, an Immense Weight

In Kate Baer’s poetry collection And Yet, ordinary domestic activities often become gateways to profound emotional truths. Nowhere is this more evident than in the symbol of baby clothes. The concrete image of outgrown garments, first appearing in Chapter 63, “Putting Away the Baby Clothes,” serves as a focal point for the collection’s meditation on impermanence, maternal loss, and the painful wisdom that comes with accepting time’s passage. Unlike the overt struggles with burnout or societal judgment that populate other poems, this symbol operates through stillness—the delicate act of folding and storing what no longer fits becomes an encounter with the edge of horror.

The Symbol in Context: What Literally Happens

The poem “Putting Away the Baby Clothes” is one of the shortest in And Yet. The speaker simply describes the act: “It’s delicate, the edge of horror. / I have crossed a thousand rivers. / How foolish we are to believe what we love won’t end.” The poem is then repeated verbatim, a structural choice that emphasizes the cyclical nature of this realization. The baby clothes are the literal items—onesies, sleepers, tiny socks—that mark a stage of infancy now passed. The act of putting them away is both a physical chore and a ritual of closure.

This symbol recurs only once directly in the text, but its echoes reverberate through other chapters. In “Perpetual Doom” (Chapter 48), the speaker’s mother messages the family to come get “your childhood stacked politely” in the attic—weathered dolls and cracked discs, linens from the past. That poem shares the same emotional terrain: the residue of growing children stored away, the smell of memory, the waiting for a funny moment to release held breath. In “Young Mother” (Chapter 17), the speaker wears her baby “like a spare appendage,” but it is not the clothes themselves that matter; it is the body that once inhabited them. The baby clothes symbol thus extends outward to every moment in the collection where a mother confronts the evidence of time.

Meaning and Transformation: From Practical Task to Existential Mirror

The meaning of the baby clothes shifts across the arc of the collection. In earlier poems such as “Burnout” (Chapter 9) and “Baby Good” (Chapter 36), the speaker is overwhelmed by the immediate demands of child-rearing. Baby clothes there are merely part of the noise—nurseries dressed in millennial pink, public crying that exhausts “baby good.” The garments are functional, unremarkable.

By Chapter 63, the speaker has moved past the day-to-day survival mode. The baby clothes now represent what has already been lost. The word “delicate” suggests both the fragility of the tiny fabric and the tender emotional state required to handle it. The phrase “edge of horror” captures the psychological precipice: one wrong thought, one lingering look, and grief could swallow the moment. The line “I have crossed a thousand rivers” frames this act as the latest in a long series of hardships—each river a past trial that has shaped the speaker’s resilience. Finally, the revelation: “How foolish we are to believe what we love won’t end.” This is not a bitter statement but a quiet, mature acceptance. The baby clothes are a tangible proof that all love exists within time, and therefore within endings.

The repetition of the poem mirrors the cyclical nature of this insight. A mother may put away clothes for one child, only to do it again for another. Or she may revisit the memory, folding it over and over in her mind. The symbol transforms from a practical item into an emblem of the speaker’s emotional growth. The earlier self who “chooses a pacing tiger” in “Young Mother” has now become someone who can sit with the grief of transience.

Connections to Themes and Characters

The baby clothes symbol intertwines with several major themes of And Yet. First, motherhood is the obvious arena: the clothes belong to the speaker’s children. The speaker herself, the poet persona, is the central character undergoing this inner work. Her experience of motherhood is not universalized—Baer grounds it in the specific weight of this single task. Yet the symbol also speaks to authenticity vs. performance (a key theme). Putting away baby clothes is the opposite of a public performance of mothering; it is a private, unobserved moment where the speaker admits that love ends. This contrasts with the performative conversations critiqued in “How to Be Happy” or the social masks in “Fatal Flaw.” The symbol thus aligns with the collection’s insistence on honest, unglamorous emotion.

The theme of resilience and perseverance also shines through. The speaker has crossed a thousand rivers—she has survived earlier crises, including the deployment of ambition in “My Ambition Goes Off to War” and the rage thrown a party in “Fatal Flaw.” Putting away the baby clothes is not a breakdown; it is a composed act of endurance. The vulnerability of “how foolish we are” coexists with the strength shown in “I have crossed.” This dual quality defines the speaker’s character throughout the book.

In terms of other characters, the children are implied but not named. The baby clothes represent the son and daughter who appear in later poems—the daughter swinging her legs at the kitchen counter in “Marvel,” the son likely the one who once wore those tiny socks. The husband is absent from this poem, which emphasizes the solitude of the speaker’s reckoning. The mother (the speaker’s mother or archetype) is also absent here, but her attic in “Perpetual Doom” offers a parallel: the generational pattern of storing childhood away.

Study Questions with Answers

Question 1: Why does the speaker describe putting away baby clothes as “the edge of horror”?
Answer: The phrase conveys the psychological intensity of confronting time’s passage and the end of a stage of life. The mundane act of folding clothes becomes charged with grief; “horror” indicates the potential for overwhelming emotion that the speaker manages with delicate care. It suggests a moment where loss is about to break through—yet she holds steady.

Question 2: How does the line “I have crossed a thousand rivers” function as a metaphor, and what does it tell us about the speaker’s past?
Answer: Rivers traditionally symbolize trials or transitions. The metaphor implies the speaker has endured many previous hardships—perhaps the challenges of early motherhood, relationship strains, or personal battles like the ambition gone to war in “My Ambition Goes Off to War.” It frames the act of putting away baby clothes as one more river, not the first or the last, and establishes the speaker as a survivor.

Question 3: What does the poem say about the nature of love and hope in relation to time?
Answer: The speaker calls it “foolish” to believe that what we love won’t end, critiquing the common illusion of permanence. Yet the word “foolish” is not scornful; it carries a tone of rueful wisdom. The poem accepts that love exists within time and therefore will end, but it does not reject the love itself. It’s a mature acceptance of impermanence rather than a cynical dismissal.

Question 4: How does this poem connect to other poems in the collection about mothering, such as “Young Mother” or “Marvel”?
Answer: “Young Mother” (Chapter 17) shows a speaker still in the thick of early motherhood—untethered, sleep-deprived, wearing her baby like a spare appendage. In “Putting Away the Baby Clothes,” that same child is now grown out of his or her infant garments. The later poem reflects on the earlier stage with the clarity of hindsight. “Marvel” (Chapter 100) celebrates the daughter’s beauty in a present moment, while the baby clothes poem mourns a past that can’t be revisited. Together they form a triptych: the overwhelmed new mother, the reflective mother of older children, and the mother in awe of her child’s current presence.

Conclusion: A Symbol of Honest Endurance

The baby clothes in And Yet are more than a sentimental prop. They crystallize Baer’s central insight: that love, however deep, unfolds within the boundaries of time. The speaker’s quiet task of putting them away becomes an act of both grief and resilience. She does not scream or rage—the poem lacks the explosive energy of “Fatal Flaw” or the sardonic humor of “How to Be Happy.” Instead, she offers a stark, repeated truth. The symbol of baby clothes endures because it is universally recognizable yet intimately specific. It reminds readers that the most profound losses often announce themselves not in dramatic events but in the soft, delicate act of folding a washed onesie and placing it in a box.