Getting to Know Our Planet

I love nature, and I think my appreciation for it has grown during this academic year.  God uses it to speak and connect with me, to help me understand Him better.  When I realized we would be studying nature poetry as a class, I was thrilled!  This poem was not quite what I expected, but it made for an interesting read.

First, some things I enjoyed or appreciated about the text:

I really loved the similarities between Lucretius' "On the Nature of the Universe", and this poem -- even in the title.  As Lucretius reported to Venus, Hass reported the "state of the planet" to Lucretius, being careful to explain things that Lucretius might not understand, and drawing analogies from his time period.  It was clever. 

I also liked how this poet presented his work in such a way that I felt it was being thought out as I read.  Somehow, I didn't feel that this was a polished and re-polished work (although I'm sure it was), I felt like it was a list of thoughts in the order that they might occur, sometimes flowing, sometimes bouncing back and forth. 

I enjoyed Hass' way of writing in that he seemed to take the reader on a journey, from a stopped car on a rainy day to a Mexican desert, to a world of atoms, several other places, and back.  It's an artistic style I'd like to try to emulate.


Some questions I had about this text:

I had trouble with this quote:

"It must be a gift of evolution that humans
Can't sustain wonder.  We'd never have gotten up
From our knees if we could.  But soon enough
We'd have fashioned sexy little earrings from the feathers,
Highlighted our cheekbones by rubbings from the rock,
And made a spear from the sinewey wood of the tree." 

I'm not sure what Hass means by sustaining wonder, and getting up off our knees.  I think I somewhat understand the part about designing things from nature, but I'm not sure how it relates to the first three lines. 

"In the years since, we've gotten
Even better at relentless simplification, but it's taken
Until our time for it to crowd out, savagely, the rest
Of life.  No use to rail against our curiosity and greed.
They keep us awake.  And are, for all their fury
And their urgency, compatible with intelligent restraint."

I think I need some help with the above quote as well.  I have the most trouble with "relentless simplification" and "compatible with intelligent restraint."


Some problems I see in the text:

I think one of the "points" Hass is trying to get across is that we need to do something about the problems in our environment.  I agree.  However, with an evolutionary view -- which the author seems to have -- that idea isn't as motivating or rich or deep as a Creationist's view (should be).  If we all -- piano tuners, gnats, you, and me -- evolved from bacteriuem which "grew green pigment" and "somehow unmated carbon dioxide...", then nature preservation just seems like another one of the completely meaningless things we do as humans.  On the other hand, when we see nature as created and spoken into existence just like us, and when we see ourselves as charged of God to be good stewards, taking care of nature becomes much more meaningful and compelling.  As Dr. Gaulden said in class once, we, the believers, should have been doing more to take care of the environment all along. 

Some additional thoughts:

As I said earlier, I love creation.  I deeply enjoy Bible verses like, "The meadows are dressed in flocks, And valleys are covered with grain; They shout for joy and sing," and "Let the sea roar, and all that fills it, The world and those who dwell in it.  Let the rivers clap their hands, Let the mountains sing together for joy before Yahweh."  The idea of these "inanimate" things interacting with God in praise is such an uplifting and powerful one.  (I'd like to think that one day we'll see something like that happen in the next life.)  Nature points us straight to our Father in Heaven.  Perhaps instead of not wanting to ask unanswerable questions in our society, we really just don't want to ask questions that lead us to Him.


With Verdure Clad (The Creation) -- Haydn