"Trampoline" by: Shel Silverstien

1) The main two things that are being compared are the directions of up and down and their relationship with our emotions. The poem goes on about describing how a child was bouncing up and down a trampoline with a girl but they never met each other because she was always the opposite direction of where he was. This metaphor may also relate to life because sometimes there are people whom you might want to meet with but they always seem to be on the other side of something, whether it is business or location or even time there always is something that stands in the way. Another way of looking at it, you can ignore how it relates to life and really focus on the directions which the two people are going in. The main idea is that these two people are on the same platform but each is going a different way and the poem ends by telling us they never met and that is one way we can relate opposite directions to the fact that in life we can be so close but yet so far.

2) This metaphor doesn’t have a large cultural significance but I am pretty sure that in every culture if two things are opposite each other and there is a chance that they will never come close, than it is most likely that people would find it awkward to support going in that opposite direction, which is seen as against the norm. Sometimes we just have to accept things the way they are and if that means there is no in between or that shade of grey which when the poem can be the meeting of these two people on the trampoline than that is that and we have to carry on with our lives.