Interpretation - State of the Planet

State of the planet is an eight page poem about the condition of nature on the planet earth. The Author, Robert Haas, is speaking to himself, to humanity, and to the ghost of the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius. This is puzzling stuff, and some readers will surely shake their heads. Hass will never give you the whole story, To read him is to use your imagination.

In my interpretation of the poem, I will attempt to go back into some history of how the earth came into such a bad condition. Robert Haas is an extremely knowledgeable literary writer. This big language will inform you and keep your interest.

The season is October and the narrator is driving in a rain storm. He observes a school girl walking and carrying a back pack. Inside of the back pack is probably a book titled, 'Getting to Know Your Planet.' The author descries the as "dog eared, full of illustrations." A dog's ear is designed for instinct surrounding his environment.

The book will tell her that the air has trapped smoke and gas from millions of cars and polluted the air. In fact, this is an accident, and man has nothing to do with it. It would seem, the production of cars in our society is more important than keeping our air clean.

It is evident, the author's comprehension of nature is the central theme of the poem. He says, "Poetry should be able to comprehend the earth." The meaning which lies here is that earth should remain loyal to nature, to set aside its natural principal and zeal. Haas agrees with Lucretius's observation of nature from two-thousand years ago, in Rome. With all respect, it is the shifting power, of the Creator, that nature is conceived with life beyond our human doing.

Lucretius, the philosopher wrote a poem about the earth around 99 B.C., about the condition of the nature. The poem describes that man was destroying the fertile land, and dams were interrupting the fish community with turbo power. Also, in China, sacred trees were gone, which is an upset to the Creator. These were the things the girl was likely to read in the book, 'Getting to Know Your Planet.'

3. The author is responding back to the poem written by Lucretius. Lucretius is dead, it is now in the 21st century, Haas is reporting that the condition of the earth is yet headed in a destructed way. In 1961, technology has found a way to extract two proteins inside of a jelly fish, and insert them into another organism that will light up. How this must be a cruelty to an animal, it does not understand the need for transplant surgery, and an artist in Chicago has asked Rome to teach him the method so he can sell dogs that glow in the dark.

4. The narrator flashed back to the scene of the girl walking in the rain with her backpack. The book will tell the story of how life on earth came to be.

The earth was formed by large amounts of dark hot liquid rock material, that fell off the sun. The clouds rained for a hundred million years and let off a strong gas onto the earth. It took a long time for the earth to cool off. The surface of the earth formed rock. the earth was quiet, and looked somewhat like the Mexico desert.