he went there, he says, because he thought in that mute placid
domain of the trees,
he might find beyond the predations of animals and men something
like the good.
. . .
but No, he says, No, the trees and their seeds and flowers are at war
just as we are,
every inch of soil is a battleground, each species of tree relentlessly
seeks its own ends;
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3 comments:
this is true and should be explored more throughly.
Hi Squirrley,
Do you mean the claim that the lines are a rhetorical python or the actual claim in the poem itself?
*grins sheepishly*
er, excuse me, lost in my own thoughts; the statement "[. . .] the trees and their seeds and / flowers are at war just as we are" suggests that "nature" itself is involved in cycles similiar to the ones we human beings find ourselves in . . . I was just listening to NPR the other evening and someone (from the central core of the Green party itself) suggested that the Party needs to make a connection between "nature" and people, a connection that considers people and what they do (mining, tree-hacking, polluting, I suppose) as a part of the total system.
This statement sounded so odd to me--obviously people are apart of all kinds of eco systems that make up the larger one we call Earth. The point of conserving the earth is not to wipe out people. These systems are dialogical--whether we 1)hear what the earth is saying or not and 2)recognize ourselves within . . .
Such obvious statements, I guess, have always been quite popular and continue to be so; for instance, Hillary Clinton claiming that in a perfect society no one would need an abortion, but until then women need choices . . .
But again, pardon my rift--certainly a twisted path from the rhetorical serpent.
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