Meditation on Beauty There are days I think beauty has been exhausted but then I
ID: 3503713 • Letter: M
Question
Meditation on Beauty There are days I think beauty has been exhausted but then I read about the New York subway cars that, dumped into the ocean, have become synthetic reefs. 3 oral gilds the stanchions, feathered with dim Atlantic light. Fish glisten, darting from a window into the sea grass that bends around them like green flames- this is human-enabled grace. So maybe there's room in the margin of error for us to save ourselves 9 from the trends of self-destruction Or maybe such beauty is just another distraction, n stuffing our hearts with its currency, paraded for applause. Here, in the South, you can hear applause s coming from the ground: even the buried are divided. At the bottom of the Gulf, dark with Mississippi silt, c rests the broken derrick of an oil rig-and isn't oil also beautiful? Ancient and opaque, like an allegory 17 that suggests we sacrifice our most beloved. Likely ourselves. In one photograph, a sea turtle skims its belly Se 9 across a hull, unimpressed with what's restored, 2o barely aware of the ocean around it growing warm. Poem #1:"Meditation on Beauty." Written by Estanislao J. Lopez. Published in New Yorker, 3/26/2018. Volume 94, Issue 6, page 32. Academic Search Complete, eds.a.ebscohost.com.db02.linccweb.org.Explanation / Answer
The poem brings us face-to-face with the actions, misdeeds and ignorant errors of Human Beings. The poet says that it seems as if the beauty of the World has seized to exist but at the same time he puts situations and outcomes of the actions of the Human race as representatives of beauty themselves. He is being sarcastic talking about how beautifully a car has made its home in the ocean amongst the fish and corals just the way oil spills in the ocean do. He compares Humans to a turtle who is unaware of its existential conditions and is still curious for more. He questions if these outcomes of human actions should also be treated as part of a beautification or should this be able to tell us that we still have time to mend things and not sacrifice ourselves and our beloveds to meaningless actions of ours.
The Speaker may be a regular resident of the city and a spectator of the everyday happenings of the world. He might have realized this cause after losing people or portions of his life to unimportant causes. He may be suffering the consequences of the advancements of the Human race or may be suffering from a disease gifted to the world by human actions. He is agitated by the artistic portrayal of human shortcomings and mishappenings to fill pockets and do nothing to set it right. We cannot disagree as such is the face of civilization on earth.
The Form of the poem is Free Verse. Each line has been written between 6 to 9 words and in 20 lines keeping it to the point and not dragging it. The pacing is slow and introspective representing the inner realizations and guilt of the poet as a Human himself.
The Tone of the poem is a mixture of Sorrow, Sarcasm, and Anger. The voice is Dark and Powerless that gets under the skin of the reader. He pictures Sea Grass as Green Flames representing the anger of nature over man. Also phrases like ''margin of error'' and "trend of self-destruction" show the mockery, grief, and helplessness in the Voice.