The roof

The sun shimmers the air like water
Asphalt shingles soft and gummy with it
Too hot to touch, too hot to sit
The only shade my shadow beside me
Adrift on an ocean of heat
I try to wet cracked lips with dry tongue

Buried

For this assignment, I chose the poem "Buried". There is a short introductory paragraph that helps to explain the origin of the poem- basically, people would have to bury their own dead. The author uses different rhythms in the work to evoke different feelings as the piece progresses. Some shorter passages are anchored in the here and now, describing the difficulty of the work, the heat, the mud and flies that make this heartbreaking task even more difficult, the physical pain from the digging. Interspersed throughout the piece are some single separate lines that seem to drive home the feeling of being forced to do this grim job- they paint a picture of the person who has to dig trying to use the physical labor as a way to temporarily blot out the pain of loss which is always lingering over all his thoughts like background noise that he cannot stand to listen to. Some longer passages deliver up memories of a lost son, the person who will occupy the hole. The memories are happy ones, times of companionship and warmth. The grave digger dreams of the time spent with his son, laughs and quiet moments shared. An innocent memory- that of his son buried under mounds of stuffed animals- jars him back to the reality of his task- the memory is too much like the job the digger must perform in reality. The last of the memory, when he teasingly would call to his son "Where are you?" probably escapes from his lips as he digs, perhaps startling him from his reverie, returning him from happier times to the reality he now faces. The digger thinks back on the time spent with his son, longing for things to be as they were. The last line- "I have to dig"- is again the attempt to do anything to blot out the misery of what he must do and what his life has become.

Snapshots 3- On the road

Whiteout is what it is called, but you are in, not out- in a vehicle moving slower than walking, in a sphere of white, erasing any outside world, the windows as useless as white blindfolded eyes. In a bubble of fear, bordering on panic, don't let it show, don't scare them, just roll-

Snapshots 2- Perry & twister-

They made us hide in the meat cooler until the all clear was sounded. We drove toward home, laughing at the ridiculousness of it. The rain stops suddenly, turned off by God's faucet. The churning dark form is directly in front of us, alive with debris, squirming and black like a dream of cancer. We pull off the road and stare, thankful for our timing. The children are on the verge of panicked tears- fear like this is not allowed in their parents.

Snapshots 1- On the island

I feel the dampness and humidity in the very air I breathe. The darkness gives no relief from the sultry air. The crickets form a chorus to the hum of the awakening mosquitoes, their numbers so great that their buzz becomes baritone.

Two questions I would ask-

Terry Tempest Williams and Rick Bass.

1.What changes, if any, have taken place since your piece was written?
2. Do these changes make you more or less hopeful?

My home town-

The map that shows the few sparse blocks of the town where I grew up (Wallingford, IA) does no justice to the true nature of that small town. Doesn't show where we fished and hunted for salamanders and frogs, no indication of the small hardware store where the owner would always allow you a cold dipperful of water from his well on a hot day. No signs show where we would sneak off to ride our minibikes. Maybe my home town should look like an image from a Mark Twain story. Although there was not much there, there was always something to do-

Everything is a Human Being

The major theme of this piece seems to be how Native Americans treated all things as if they have their own life, versus the colonists who were only interested in what (and how much) they could gain from the land. I also feel how the author, as an African American woman, feels that treatment is comparable to the treatment of slaves. She attempts to communicate with nature (literally), and seems to say that there is no safe place for the natural world now- even in a protected area, the trees have been poisoned and grow twisted and unnaturally because of it.