The major theme of the poem is to encourage people to plant tree and protect forests. According to the introduction about Merwin, I know that he was helping to save the tropical rain forests in the U.S. It's not hard to believe that he was showing in this poem his determination with saving the forests even "on the last day of the world". As I could tell from his words, he really loves planting trees. There are sentences like "the water touching its roots", and "the clouds passing one by one over it leaves". These sentences depict a harmonious scene the tree stay together with the nature, even it was the end of the world. Every thing is going to extinct, but a tree would stay in harmony with the disaster. As far as I know, the writer lives a leisure life in Hawaii, planting trees and doing some writings. His peaceful life contributes to his peaceful mind, which could be found in his writings. In this poem, his words are mild. He could take all things for granted, even when the end of the world came, he would have no fear. He would keep planting trees until the world ends. The last tree he planted would be "the tree that stands in the earth for the first time".
when first reading the poem i had no idea what he was talking about except trees. but i think this is a good interpretation of both the poem and writer together.
ReplyDeleteI guess the peom reminds you of the Japanese cartoon. You know what I mean. The robot one. At the end of the world, only those who satisfied feel no fear.
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