Distance sets the problem in Hazel McKay's «Trying», and effort is the only answer the speaker can offer. She introduces herself as "a far away friend", and by the second stanza we understand that the person she addresses is upset: "My dear, don't cry." The poem never says why, and it doesn't need to. Its central idea is that when you cannot be physically present, trying still counts as a form of love, even if the poem is honest enough to admit that trying is not the same as arriving.
The first stanza reads like a modest confession. "I try to be good" sounds almost childlike, as if the speaker were reporting on her behaviour to someone who might be disappointed. Then comes the line that gives the poem its edge: "I try harder than I should." It is a strange thing to say, because it is hard to try harder than you should. The line can be read as a hint of exhaustion, of a person straining against the distance and feeling the cost. It can also be read as a quiet defence, a way of saying that no one could ask for more. Judging by the text alone, the speaker seems anxious about whether her effort is enough. The phrase "My love to you I send" adds to this. The inverted word order sounds like the sign-off of a letter, and the verb "send" makes love something that must be posted across a gap rather than handed over in person.
The second stanza opens with "But", as if answering an unspoken accusation, or perhaps the speaker's own self-doubt. Her defence is the humble "At least", repeated twice: "at least I try", "at least I care". These words concede that something is missing while insisting that something remains. It is also telling that nearly every line is anchored by "I", so the speaker is constantly describing herself. The one exception is "My dear, don't cry", the only line aimed wholly at the other person's feelings, and the only command. Here the poem turns outward for a moment, and the tone becomes tender rather than defensive.
The sound patterns reinforce this movement. The first stanza rhymes ABAB, with "friend" and "send" pairing the relationship with the act of reaching across distance, and "good" and "should" pairing virtue with obligation. The second stanza runs ABABB, with an extra line that seems to spill over the edge of the stanza. The rhymes "try" and "cry" are the most revealing, because they bind the speaker's effort to the other person's pain. "Care" and "there" then join feeling to presence, the two things she wants to bring together. The lines also shrink as the poem goes on. The opening lines have five or six syllables, and the final ones have only three. By the end the language has been stripped down to a repeated promise, short enough to be whispered to someone in tears.
That repetition of "I'll be there" is the poem's most interesting moment. It is the only time the speaker moves out of the present tense ("I'm", "I try", "I send") and into the future. The word "there" also answers "far away" from the first line, since it names the place where the other person is. Said twice, the promise can sound like reassurance, the kind of phrase you repeat to calm someone, but it can equally sound like the speaker persuading herself. The poem never shows her arriving, so the promise stays suspended, hopeful but unproven.
That honesty is what makes the poem worth reading. Its vocabulary is plain and its form is neat, but it avoids grand gestures and easy comfort. It recognises a situation many people know: wanting to help someone and being kept at a distance, with only words to cross it. By making "try" the key word, repeated in the title and again in three of its lines, the poem suggests that effort is something we offer when we cannot offer more, and that this offering is neither empty nor quite enough. It leaves the reader with that uncertainty, along with a promise that still has to be kept.