Poem in My Pocket

The War Against the Trees by Stanley Kunitz The man who sold his lawn to standard oil Joked with his neighbors come to watch the show While the bulldozers, drunk with gasoline, Tested the virtue of the soil Under the branchy sky By overthrowing first the privet-row. Forsythia-forays and hydrangea-raids Were but preliminaries to a war Against the great-grandfathers of the town, So freshly lopped and maimed. They struck and struck again, And with each elm a century went down. All day the hireling engines charged the trees, Subverting them by hacking underground In grub-dominions, where dark summer's mole Rampages through his halls, Till a northern seizure shook Those crowns, forcing the giants to their knees. I saw the ghosts of children at their games Racing beyond their childhood in the shade, And while the green world turned its death-foxed page And a red wagon wheeled, I watched them disappear Into the suburbs of their grievous age. Ripped from the craters much too big for hearts The club-roots bared their amputated coils, Raw gorgons matted blind, whose pocks and scars Cried Moon! On a corner lot One witness-moment, caught In the rear-view mirrors of the passing cars.

Through Chapter 10

In The Grapes of Wrath, the land is of utmost importance to the people. The land is what they lived on, and lived off of. This is why the immense dust storm, originating from the ruined land, affected the people in the area in such a negative way. The people felt attached to the land, that it was part of their family. One tenant describes: "Grampa took up the land, and he had to kill the Indians and drive them away. And Pa was born here, and he killed weeds and snakes... An' we have a tendency to was born here. There within the door—our youngsters born there" (Steinbeck 43). Th people on the land also felt emotionally connected to it. They “be sad when it isn’t doing well, and feel fine when the rain falls on it, that property is him, and some way he’s bigger because he owns it” (48). The land is very close to being an emotional part of them. In addition, the land is much more than just a possession, its their lively hood and their life. They loved and cared for the land, much unlike the “gloved, goggled, rubber dirt mask over nose and mouth” (45).

English class is the bomb

I am currently having fun in English class!