State of the Planet

I read the State of the Planet by Robert Hass.  I will be taking parts of the poem and interpreting them on what I believe them to mean.

The first section I will be interpreting is:

"The book will say that the climate is complicated, that we may be doing this, and if we are, it may explain that this was something we've done quite accidentally, which she can understand, not having meant that morning to have spilled the milk.  She's one of those who's only hungry metaphorically."

In the beginning of this poem it speaks of a girl with a red book bag with this textbook, "Getting to know your planet" in it.  The author then speaks of how cars like his have trapped emissions and are contributing to the greenhouse effect.  I chose this part because at first it is very hard to understand why spilled milk would be compared to greenhouse affect and the meaning of the last sentence is unclear.  I would take this quote to mean at first that it is silly to call the green house effect an accident.  It compares it to spilled milk to show sarcasm; and to make a hyperbole of spilled milk being such a big accident compared to greenhouse effect.  But if we look at the last sentence it says she is only hungry metaphorically implying that she may have spilled the milk on purpose.  If she is only hungry metaphorically, that would explain that she didn't want the milk and therefore spilled it.  With this information we can assume that the green house effect was not an accident and that people just didn't take care of the planet or didn't want to bother helping because too much work.  This interpretation is important for us to understand the rest of the poem.  If we read this part and think that the author is saying it is only an accident we will read on taking the poem lightly as it talks about all the destruction we have had on our ozone layer.  If we take the poem lightly it will lose the whole meaning of the poem, which is to make it known that our nature is being hurt by certain things people do and they need to be aware and help the greenhouse effect become extinct. 

The second part I interpreted from State of the Planet is:

"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."

In the beginning of this section 4 in the poem it talks about how the child will learn about how the earth came to be from the textbook.  In the couple of sentences leading up to this quote it is talking about how it must be evolution that has created humans to not hold wonder and how if humans had the choice they would never have gotten up.  I have chosen this text because I feel that many would not get why the author chose to say this and what he is saying about people on the earth.  Also to relate this part of the poem to the first section I wrote on.  I feel this section of the poems meaning was about how humans have grown lazy and materialistic on their own.  In the first couple of sentences before this part it says, "It must be a gift of evolution that humans cannot sustain wonder."  With this part and the quote I used it is saying sarcastically that humans cannot sustain wonder and that it is not evolution, it is us who have turned towards using the earths materials and not taking care of it.  We have become obsessed with looks and material possessions because we can't maintain wonder of nature and be in awe of it.  We must use it to make ourselves better.  This interpretation matters because it shows that people have lost the ability to be in awe of our nature and therefore take care if it.  We have turned into a society that uses the earths materials and don't even give back to it by taking care of it.  It relates to my first interpretation because it says how people don't take care of the earth and that it is know accident they just don't care and this interpretation talks on humans selfishness of the beauty of the earth.  This part of the poem expands on the idea of how people have no excuse not to give back to and treat the earth with respect.  If people would learn from this poem to spend more time in nature and think on how we hurt it that we can prove that evolution didn't create us to be careless and not be in awe. 
Another interpretation that I heard others in class talk about, was how this may mean that humans are not capable of maintaining wonder and evolution granted this to us so that we would have the rise of man.  The rise of man comes from the quote in the poem, "We'd never have gotten up from our knees if we could."  But since we did rise from our knees this created man, and how we hurt the world by contributing to the green house effect.  This too could mean that when Hass says how we would soon, though while on our knees, would fashion earrings and use things to make us beautiful.  This showing how man still would not treat the earth right.