My Interpretation of "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action" PART ONE

I really liked this poem that we read in class, so I thought I would break it down and share my interpretation of it.  I will first write the original line of poetry, followed by my response.

Nobody wants to die on the way
Caught between ghosts of whiteness
and the real water
~
I think that "the ghosts of whiteness" in this stanza, are representative of the spiritual world, where as the "real water" is representative of the physical world we experience during life.
~
None of us wanted to leave
our bones
on the way to salvation
~
To me, this line was pretty easily interpreted as "even those who believe in an afterlife don't want to leave their mortal bodies and die."
~
Three planets to the left
a century of light years ago
our spices are separate and particular
but our skins sing in complimentary keys
~
Three planets to the left means planet Earth.  The line "a century of light years ago" is tricky, but it reminds me of the final chapter of my SSR book Sophie's World, in which the long awaited character "the major" explains to his daughter that the universe is expanding, and that when we look at a planet or far away star, we are actually seeing it as it was many thousands or millions of years ago because of how long it takes light to travel.  I think Lorde means to suggest the capability of things to change dramatically and unexpectedly, just as the the universe came into existence quickly and unexpectedly. This sudden change is symbolic of how quickly and significantly her life changed when she received her cancer diagnosis.  "A century of light years ago" could also represent the joyous times she had "years ago" before she was diagnosed.  "Our spices are separate and particular but our skins sing in complimentary keys" asserts that although every human is unique, we are not so different, in fact, we often help each other.  The fact that "our skins sing in complimentary keys" exemplifies how similar we all our despite outward appearances.
~
at a quarter to eight mean time
we were telling stories
over and over and over
~
This first line really stumped me.  I looked up "mean time" which has a different meaning than "meantime" and apparently means "time that is based on the motion of the mean sun."  Lorde references the solar system yet again - obviously not accidentally.  The sun is usually not visible at the time "a quarter to eight (7:45)," which displays the somber and dark tones as Lorde contemplates her own death.  "We were telling the same stories over and over and over" was also very hard for me to figure out.  I came to the conclusion that as Lorde is contemplating her own death, she realizes how much more she wants to do with her life, and that she has been doing the same monotonous things every day.

I will analyze the next half of the poem in a future post.