ECOLOGICAL CONCERNS AND PUBLIC INTERESTS MESSAGES: HAVING A

CLOSE LOOK AT THE POETIC CONTENT AND ITS INTENT

Ecological concerns in writings from the Northeast

Temsula Ao

A prominent literary voice from Nagaland, Temsula Ao has to her credit many designations such
as being a poet, short story writer and ethnographer. As a custodian of her culture, her role is no
short of being an environmentalist as she shoulders the responsibility of preserving her oral
traditions and cultural heritage and salvaging them from the invasive forces of modernization.
Her poetry reflects her earnest endeavour to return to her roots, and reclaim a lost identity that is
inextricably linked with the hills and their ways of life. However, insurgency, violence, corruption,
overexploitation of natural resources and a growing disregard for the traditional ways has resulted in
the present conundrum and the nature is paying a heavy price for humans’ aberrations. Temsula’s poetry is
marked by an insightful ecological sensibility which makes it relevant for an eco-critical reading and
analysis

“Alas for the river” etc that appear in subsequent verses heighten the sense of contrast and
create a sense of despondence while they describe the earth as it is now, battered and spoiled
due to excessive exploitation of its resources by humans

Alas for the river

It is muddy now
With the leaving
Of the two-legged animal
Who bleached her banks
And bombed her depths

Another interesting feature of the poem is the use of the epithet “two-legged animal” to refer
to humans. It aptly depicts a race which despite priding itself to be at the top of the
hierarchies of all life forms has stooped so low in its manners and actions that it is hell bent
upon destroying its very abode and that of the fellow species. The poet wishes to distance
herself from an insensitive and selfish breed that has come to signify humanity and feels
ashamed to belong to it. It is also symbolic of the extreme depravity and cupidity that has
today come to define the human nature

“The Bald Giant” (Ao 2013, 175-176) which portrays the ill-effects of deforestation and the
consequent wretched state of hills. Using the analogy of a giant gone bald because of being
shorn of his “green cloak”, the poet paints a poignant picture of a defaced hill that once
exuded glory, grace and majesty.
All that is now gone
All of him is brown
From base to crown
And his sides are furrowed
Where the logs had rolled
Once I thought him friendly
But now he looks menacing

The denuded hills can also be read as a metaphor for the human race that by destroying its
own habitat has turned suicidal. Driven by a mindless hunger for amassing wealth and
property, humans have degraded into a horrible species characterized by an insatiable desire
for controlling and conquering nature. Similarly, “My Hills” (Ao 2013, 157-158) presents a
dismal picture of a landscape that lies ravaged due to excessive human interference and
alteration. The following lines are an idyllic depiction of the hills as they once were in their
pristine state
Once they hummed
With bird-song
And happy gurgling brooks
Like running silver
With shoals of many fish

In a later verse, the poet contrasts this utopian image with a gloomy one, which is suggestive
of the adverse effects of human civilization on the natural environment. The following lines
make this degeneration evident
The rivers are running red The hillsides are bare
And the seasons Have lost their magic

Temsula’s poetry provides an example of such environmental counter-ethics. By

animating nature and lending it a discourse, she endeavours to break the silence of
nature and empower it so as to safeguard its interests against the hegemony of an
overbearing humanity whose intellectual capacity falls short of comprehending the
‘silence of nature

Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih

Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih is a bilingual poet, fiction writer and playwright from Shillong,
Meghalaya who writes both in Khasi (name of the indigenous tribe of Meghalaya as well as
language spoken by them). His poetry responds to the exigencies of his place and time and is
replete with a wide range of concerns from political to environmental.
It bears testimony to the adverse changes wrought by a rapid rise in urbanization and
industrialization in the past few decades on the sensitive ecosystems of this region which
makes it significant from an ecocritical perspective.

“An Evening by the Source of the Umkhrah River” (Nongkynrih 2011, 17) begins with an
idyllic description of the Umkhrah as it flows “winding through the hills” with its “limpid
water” and “bed of white sand” that has for visitors “occasional fisherman/washing the clean
earth from their sturdy feet”, “country maiden, blushing and giggling/on smooth, swarthy
water-worn stones” and “gambolling children” whose euphonious cries are carried by the
wind as it “ruffles the deep grass” playing “a tune with the head swaying pines”. However,
the poem ends abruptly in an anticlimax with the poet contrasting the countryside utopia with
the urban sordidness. Nobody cares that this limpid water, the bashful maiden, the tuneful
pines are rolling down to the city where life itself wallows in the filth

The last line raises concerns about the deteriorating state of the river. Wah Umkhrah and Wah
Umshyrpi are the two main rivers that flow through Shillong eventually draining their waters
into the Umiam Lake, which draws great significance from being the first hydel power
project of Northeast India. The two rivers, Umkhrah and Umshyrpi have for ages been a
means of sustenance for the people of Shillong and neighboring areas and are solely
responsible for providing electricity to the entire city. The rivers have been a source of
identity for Shillong whose many localities are named after them. Besides, Wah Umkhrah has
mythological significance as well. According to the beliefs of the Khasi tribe, the river is one
of the nine streams of mythic origin that sprang from Shillong Peak, the chief deity of the
Khasi tribe. (Acharya et al. 2010). However, down the years, increasing pressures of
population, industrialisation and urbanization have taken their toll on the health of the river
which has been reduced to an open drain during summer months with all the sewage, garbage
and industrial waste being dumped into it without much treatment. If the people of Shillong
didn’t respond to this warning sign now, they might lose their precious lifeline forever

The poem contrasts the past marked bymellifluous sounds of nature with the present
characterized by chaos and cacophony emanating from the concrete jungles that have
replaced the natural environments due to excessive migrations and rampant urbanization of
the regions.
No more do I hear the morning sounds of home:
birds warbling, cicadas whining, crows cawing,
chickens yapping about the yard and my uncle
readying for the cement factory.
……………………………..
Strange sounds are crowding this town
Like the rooster, I too, seem
To have become obsolete

“Rain Song 2000” (Nongkynrih 2011, 38-40) draws attention towards the adverse climate
changes occurring across the globe as a result of the ecological imbalance which are nature’s
warning signs of an impending apocalypse
The employment of anthropomorphism in the following lines creates a counter discourse that
questions the exploitative regime of human thought by breaking the silence of nature and
lending it a voice as evident in the following lines:

so why is the sky weeping

a river of unseasonable tears?
Why is the wind shrieking night and day
and pines beating their chests in pain?
The simplon pass 1799
The immeasurable height
Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,
The stationary blasts of waterfalls,
And in the narrow rent, at every turn,
Winds thwarting winds bewildered and forlorn,
The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,
The rocks that muttered close upon our ears, 10
Black drizzling crags that spake by the wayside
As if a voice were in them, the sick sight
And giddy prospect of the raving stream,
The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens,
Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light--
Were all like workings of one mind, the features
Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree,
Characters of the great Apocalypse,

The phrase “wood decaying” in the extract above suggests the cruel deforestation that started
long ago andis still going on in full pace in today’s world. The phrase also reminds us of
William Blake’s “The EchoingGreen” (1789), which portrays the darkening woods. The
greenery turning into the darkening woods indicates that changes are taking place in the
natural world with the lapse of time although Blake does not specify why this “darkening” is
happening. Blake might have witnessed the same decay and degradation in
nature.Wordsworth’s nature has a harmony and an order behind the apparent anomaly and
tumult but Blake’s naturecomplies with the post-lapsarian nature in paradise. Moreover, the
Biblical word “Apocalypse” paves the wayfor analyzing these lines from a different angle.
The word relates the poem directly to the environment sciencewhich predicts a rise in sea
water level because of excessive temperature increase in the atmosphere. Thecareless
destruction of forests is one of the major reasons for this temperature rise the consequence of
which isthe melting of ice cubes in the North Pole. Every year the rise in sea water is
engulfing many low-lying coastalareas around the globe which may be seen as a mini-
apocalyptic event. If the “wood decaying” keepshappening and reaches its culmination, there
shall, according to the scientists and the New Testament, be anapocalyptic event in nature
which will destroy everything

Wordsworth notices the “tumult and peace” in nature while walking through the Simplon
Pass. This observation of “tumult and peace” is completely in conformity of what the
environment scientists say now. Nature shows up her double-standard behavior when she
becomes rude and ferocious in many parts of the earth because of this “wood decaying”. At
the same time, she remains silent in other parts. Both Wordsworth and the scientists are true,
because nature, as a matter of fact, is simultaneously silent and responsive. Words worth
never believes in disturbing and thus affecting nature though he accepts the natural co-
existence of “tumult and peace” in her. The poet’s love of and devotion to nature as well as
the anomalies he witnesses in the SimplonPass extend to further analysis of Wordsworth’s
eco-scientific notion in his mind that “nature undisturbed is balanced and harmonious”

in “Nutting”(1798), Wordsworth recalls one of the glorious unforgettable childhood days

when, like other school boys, he went out to the woods to gather hazel nuts. Reaching the
orchard, at length he rose and dragged down and broke the branches mercilessly leaving the

shady nook with its beauty soiled and destroyed

then up I rose, And dragged to the earth both branch and bough, with crash And merciless

ravage; and the shady nook Of hazels and the green and mossy bower, Deformed and sullied,

patiently gave up Their quite beings; (Sen et al., 1989, p. 386, lls. 43-48)

To Wordsworth, man gets whatever he needs from the objects of nature. Nature never minds

for the slight losses she suffers for the greater convenience of mankind. Even she fills the gap

and deficiency caused by man just to provide him once again when he requires.

Wordsworth’s is such a philanthropic soul which repents for the negligible damage he caused

to the hazel tree. He goes on saying;

and, unless I now Comfound my present feelings with the past; Ere from the mutilated bower

I turned Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings, I felt a sense of pain when I beheld The

silent trees, (Sen et al., 1989, p. 386, lls. 48-53)

He has proved himself to be a true teacher feeling an intense pain in hurting a simple hazelnut

tree. This love for nature and her objects epitomizes his noble concern as a poet of nature,

i.e., the poet with a concern to preserve and protect nature.

A remarkable example of the emphasis on the interdependence of man and Nature is

Wordsworth’s lovable poem, “Lines Written in Early Spring” (1798), wherein Wordsworth
places the speaker in the middle of Nature and shows that Nature is right and loyal to man,
and it is man who should be responsible for the broken relationship between him and Nature.
For instance, the poet says:
I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man? (Lines 1-8)

...

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature’s holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

As the main purpose of this paper is to shed light on the ecological awareness of many
readers of Wordsworth’s poetry, his poem “The Tables Turned” (1798) is a great example to
prove the fact that Wordsworth strongly believes in the great power of Nature that educates
human mind and leads it to the perfect direction. In this poem, the poet rejects all human
knowledge, i.e. acquired by reading books. The poet says:

Up! up! my friend, and quit your books;

Or surely you’ll grow double:

Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks;

Why all this toil and trouble? (Lines 1-4)

...

Books! ’tis a dull an endless strife:

Come, and hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life,

There’s more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

He, too, is no mean preacher:

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher

Nilim kumar’s poetry

With this idea in mind, we make a probe from ecocritical point of view into the poetic world
of one of the most popular poets, Nilim Kumar from India‟s north-east region Assam

Nilim Kumar‟s treatment of nature appears mostly through magical narratives. His much-
talked-about poem Gochor Malita (Ballad on trees) begins as: A tree enters angrily into the
Municipality office And begins to burst into tears hitting its head On the Mayor‟s table. The
Mayor‟s room is filled with Falling leaves. The glass-table dazzles in drops of tears of the
tree. Then after, tree goes along the small road of the town. Releasing mysterious story of
town.
With this magical narrative and metaphorical implications the poet conveys the woes of the
plants which fall victim to human torture. This poem depicts the condition of wilderness. It
ends with a more pathetic scene when the tree in front of all dies on the floor of the
Municipal office. This poetic piece has been indicative of crisis in global wilderness where
humans ruthlessly inflict various kinds of wreckages perennially

His much-celebrated poem Bhut (The Ghost) included in his current anthology Nilim
Kumaror Nirbachta Kobita (Selected poems of Nilim Kumar, 2017), which is replete with
environmental consciousness, is a quintessence of a situation that entails attempts of civilized
men who seek to be happy bringing devastations to nature. It has a striking launch: “Don‟t
utter in fear If your house is trembling at night, Or you hear some sounds on the roof, If you
see your house curtains waving Or you hear flute tunes rising up from down the floor, Don‟t
utter in fear.
This quizzical indication bears a fact that the abrupt happenings, as the poet feels in a house
compound, are some actions of the souls of birds and other things of eco-sphere. The poet
maintains that civilized men become hosts sending the members of the bio-sphere homeless,
cutting trees and destroying their habitats. But the poet reminds each and every one that these
nature members never trod from their places, but remain as souls everywhere: “But you
cannot hurl them away They stay there instant
In their own places Only you stay at day time And they at night.”

This poetic piece makes interesting reading when the poet glorifies the objects of nature
valuing them as innocent specimens of creation. Ecocritics mainly talk of a space in nature
and its far-reaching ethical zone. Only it is man whose unwanted interaction with it is the
most disparaging part of tragedy. The poet, at the final part of the work, forwards a rhetorical
question as “And hence, your house trembles at night/you hear sounds on the roof…”. It is
nothing but a reminder to all of us-- men should think of nature as their best companion and
enjoy its benevolent forces as can as possible. Men should not create an atmosphere of
aesthetic and ethical dilemma and make the whole of the globe a space of tribulations and
destructions.

Creation on all fronts on earth always bears a meaning ranging from the largest animal to the
microscopic bacteria. Any devastation being meted out to ecosphere by humans creates havoc
not only to its living organisms, but also to its overall milieu. The ecocritics institute a serious
probe into reflections of such situation available in a literary text. From this point of view we
observe that the poet Nilim Kumar remains apologetic toward human‟s redundant
intervention in nature. The destruction, being done to nature, as the poet regrets, brings
miseries to the non-humans sending them homeless. In the fourth part of the poem is
ecocritically noteworthy as the poet writes:
“Flocks of distant birds Had their rest on that fig tree, They sang songs Made chirpings And
many of them built nests. The sounds that you hear on the roof Are sounds of the souls, They
are in search of their old homes, Places where they sang songs Nests they lost in utter
despair.”

This catastrophe created unfeelingly by humans and allowed to approach is the greatest of its
kind that takes place constantly in any places on earth at present day times. The poet‟s
interpretation here reminds us of this situation and this particular stanza also emerges as a
warning to those who are persistently engaged in this act of devastation. Ananya S Guha in
an article entitled Poetry and the Art of Being rightly comments on Nilim kumar‟s poetry as
an embodiment of mourning and loss of things: “Nilim‟s poems ambiguous, recalcitrant and
poignant drive home the artistic dilemma of poetry, poets, love and death. There is nostalgia,
mourning almost for things and people gone” (Guha: 2017). And the above stanza carries the
poet‟s mourning for the living organisms. The present poem is lucid in its linguistic pattern,
but it carries hidden meanings. His artistic intersection in the wilderness and connotation with
human intervention lead him to a domain where he is capable of assuming a position to
authorize his ideals of environmental ethics. Bhut identifies the poet as bearer of
anthropocentric ideals since the work centrally brings forth human interface with nature. The
poet never forgets to make an appeal for fellow feeling towards nature. Human interface with
natural objects is a common thing on earth, but men should apply their power of rationality
for the betterment of the environment.

In another poem entitled Fox, Nilim Kumar recounts his geographical memories of his
childhood days with a difference. On the one hand, it brings him back to the time when he, as
a child, was less matured to make out what life means to him. On the other hand, he
expresses his strong obsession towards the creatures like foxes in the jungle. In between his
desire for this mysterious animal and his rage for them, the poet draws a note of melancholy
about life and its happenings. Nature, in the poem, represents a world of mystery where he
submits to its core forces as a human being. He writes: “He was the only inexplicable animal
In the land of my life‟s jungle.”
Fox is ecocritically significant in the sense that it conveys the poet‟s wild wish changing the
life of the animal to a bullock allowing it to pull a cart. Ecocritics can trace this poetic
rendering as a natural representation for a situation where we observe prototypes of human
beings in animals. In the final part of the poem, we again observe that the poet, as is done in
Bhut, shows his serious concern about destructions in nature. He does not find trace of his
childhood friend (fox); everything in nature or the wilderness is now taken up by concrete
structures. The poet is seriously melancholic about the absence of such mysterious animals in
his memorable jungles; and with this environmental imagination the poet seems to suggest
lessons of social responsibility and ecological „oneness‟. He writes: My dreamy land is now
gone It‟s concrete everywhere, The plants now breathe through glasses Oh! Where has it
gone My old, mysterious friend In the jungle of glasses?

Distinct from nature poetry, environmental poetry explores the

complicated connections between people and nature, often
written by poets who are concerned about our impact on the
natural world. Poets today are serving as witnesses to climate
change while bringing attention to important environmental
issues and advocating for preservation and conservation.
When writing environmental poems today, contemporary poets
tend to write about nature more broadly than their
predecessors, focusing more on the negative effects of human
activity on the planet. Critic Jay Parini explained in his
introduction to Poems for a Small Planet: Contemporary American
Nature Poetry, “Nature is no longer the rustic retreat of the
Wordsworthian poet. … [it] is now a pressing political question, a
question of survival.”

Carl dennis

The greenhouse effect

The gradual warming trend will likely go on

And the grain belt to slide closer to the poles

The plain states will be abononed as giant dust bowls

Greenland and antarctia will join the new great powers.

Even if we play them off against each other

For more aid, we’still be poorer than we are now

Life will be different, good tillable ladn so dear.

The suburbs will give ay to farms, the cities

Walking to work or crowding on trollies.

We’ll move down streets lined with practical nut trees

Not elms and oaks, with vegetables crowding the front lawns.

By bharat adhikari
I gave you food, land to live and many other happiness.
But now it's your turn.
Your turn to fight for my freedom.
Fight against my deterioration.
Fight against my degradation.
Fight against all of the problems that you are doing on me.
Don't try to harm me, don't make me anxious.
Using those chemicals don't rise my pressure high.
I may burst out, crushing your houses, punching you down.
Leading offensive disasters.
 

In Praise of Air', the world's first air-cleansing poem, was produced by scientists and
writers at the University of Shef ..

The poem is on display at the U.K.’s University of Sheffield (it was written by Simon
Armitage, one of the school’s poetry professors). Researchers at the university
devised an air-cleaning formula used in the material the poem’s printed on, which
will eliminate the equivalent of 20 cars’ NOx pollution every day. (Nitrogen oxide
speeds global warming and acid rain.)

The 10m x 20m (33×66 feet) piece of material the poem is printed on is coated with
microscopic pollution-eating particles of titanium dioxide, which use sunlight and
oxygen to react with nitrogen oxide pollutants and purify the air
In praise of Air

I write in praise of air.  I was six or five

when a conjurer opened my knotted fist
and I held in my palm the whole of the sky.
I’ve carried it with me ever since.

Let air be a major god, its being

and touch, its breast-milk always tilted
to the lips.  Both dragonfly and Boeing
dangle in its see-through nothingness …

Among the jumbled bric-a-brac I keep

a padlocked treasure-chest of empty space,
and on days when thoughts are fuddled with smog
or civilization crosses the street

with a white handkerchief over its mouth

and cars blow kisses to our lips from theirs
I turn the key, throw back the lid, breathe deep.
My first word, everyone’s first word, was air.

G venkatesh’s poem on water scarcity

FORGOTTEN LESSONS
Washing cars, watering lawns
bathing long at wintry dawns.
They sent a lot down the drain
and cried foul at the truant rain.

Those old pipes leaking away,

none was bothered, none did pay.
‘Not my problem,’ all did say,
passing the buck, the Indian way.

Taps today are running dry.

They blame their fate, and curse and sigh,
grudgingly get their buckets and buy,
privileged few with hoi polloi.

The monsoon next year will be strong,

There’ll be water in pipes all day long.
Lessons learnt will be forgotten,
and taps turned on with gay abandon.

Nandu nishok

Can't go swimming?
Less water to drink.
Try to store up,
And gear up.

No power supply,
Because there's no water.
Water is so meagre,
Try to use it acceptably.

Make a water check in all dams,

And compare.
Water is present everywhere,
Sadly, it's all saline.

Rain drops are guests to our earth,

But we don't summon them properly.
Earth is globally warmed,
So glaciers turn to saline.

Store up the paltry water,

Use it suitably and precisely,
And conserve it for next use
This paper makes a attempt to analyse Tagore’s selected nature poems,
written a century back viz. “The Tame Bird was in a Cage” and “I plucked
you Flower” to see what kind of message to humanity they carry regarding
environmental threats the world is facing today.
In another poem, “I plucked you Flower” (The Gardener, Poem No LVII), human

aggression gets expressed through the plucking of a flower.

“I plucked your flower, O world/

I pressed it to my heart and the thorn

pricked

when the day waned and it darkened, I

found that,

the flower had faded, but the pain

remained”. (1-4)

Even though the speaker starts with a flower, his motive is “flower-gathering” (7). His

motive is business. When he plucked a flower, his hand is pricked by a thorn.

More flowers will come to you with

perfume and

pride, O world/

But my time for flower gathering is over,

and through

the dark night I have not my rose, only

the pain

remain (5-9)

The human feel that plucking flowers is their own right. Nature is not a silent

spectator. One day it will react. It would not be just a thorn-prick but can be a mighty

tsunami. The human should be careful about this.

In her ensuing poems,

6 she focuses upon various aspects of distressing pollution and draws attention to them.

In her A Choking Sky, for example, Roper personifies and metaphorically and

strongly represents the sky in a way that it cannot breathe the same as a human

being due to the “smoke stacks” which comes from the factory chimney

Watching smoke stacks choke the sky Always makes me want to cry. I just can't help

but wonder why The factories won't even try To find a safer, better way To put their

poisonous waste away.

In her short poem, Roper draws our attention to two significant points linked to

the primary source of environmental pollution. First, she represents the level of

industrialization in that factory chimneys release a huge amount of “smoke” into

air which covers the whole sky, making it “choke.” It is a metaphoric death of “the

sky” like the sky of Beijing, China, which Roper represents to indicate the

tremendous level of danger caused by industrialization (Babones, 2017). Normally

speaking, the sky represents a vast space, and thus it is not easy for smoke to

cover it, yet the amount of “smoke stacks” seems so high and dense that they

bring about serious air pollution. In fact, the air pollution means the pollution of

almost everything – the pollution of the whole living organisms. The “smoke’,

which comes out of factory chimneys, contains some poisonous but invisible gases

such as carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), sulphur dioxide (SO2),

nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ozone. Both human beings and animals breathe
oxygen, yet it is polluted by CO, SO2 and NOx which are also poisonous. CO2 is a

special problem on its own since it is mostly responsible for what we call the

“greenhouse effect” and “global warming.

As seen in both poems and quotations above, the “smoke” which “chocks” is very

poisonous and dangerous in several ways. The “smoke” contaminates the air

(oxygen) which both human beings and animals breathe, giving rise to serious health

problems such as lung cancer, asthma, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease),

heart disease, and stroke and so on. Besides, when there is rain or snow, the poisonous

gases inside the smoke fall down as in the form of acid rain and result in the pollution of

soil, plants and vegetables on the earth. Human beings and animals eat these plants and

vegetables which grow up in the polluted soil. Once the amount of poisonous gases

increase above certain level in the body of human beings and plants, certain health

problems start at once, so that the speaker of A Choking Sky is wondered about the

picture of “the sky” covered with “smoke stacks.” As seen, there is an intertwined

relationship between the factory “smoke” in “the sky” and health issue: that is,

they reciprocally affect each other in negative and positive ways.

The second view linked to A Choking Sky is that Roper complains of lack of action to

reduce the danger of smoke coming out of factory chimneys. By this view, she

might accuse the decision makers, local, national and international responsible people,

of not taking necessary action to minimize the threat of the “smoke” to environment

and health
In her next poem The Stream Where I Played, Roper compares and contrasts the

period of her childhood and that of her present life to show the reader difference

between the clean environmental space when she was a child and the polluted one in

the present: I played in this stream as a child, When the ravine seemed so endless and

wild. The water was clear and smelled so clean, It was so long ago that it seems like a

dream. What Roper writes in this stanza resembles William Wordsworth’s poem I

Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (1807), in which Wordsworth writes about his

enjoyment when he recalls his childhood memories of “daffodils”, which “floats on

high o’er vales and hills...[like] A host of golden daffodils...Beside the lake,/ beneath

the trees, /Fluttering and dancing in the breeze...” Similarly, Roper, like

Wordsworth, recalls her own childhood time and how she walked by the bank of

the “stream” and enjoyed its clean water “as a child.” The water was so clean that its

flow and scenery charmed her fabulously; it made her happy and peaceful in her life.

What she witnessed in the nature still haunts her and heals her “worry” and “cry” in

her current life.

But now Roper comes to realize that “It was so long ago that it seems like a dream” now

in the present time. What she enjoyed years ago in the nature has been gone for ever:

Now this stream is too dirty for my child. The water is scummy and smells vile. The

place where I played seems so foul and decayed, And I shed the first tear as the dream

starts to fade.

Water is of vital importance for life – human and non-human; its cleanness,

freshness and availability give us life, nurture and protect the health of human

and non-human alike. As Christ Woodford argues, “over two thirds of Earth's

surface is covered by water; less than a third is taken up by land. As Earth’s

population continues to grow, people are putting ever-increasing pressure on the

planet's water resources. In a sense, our oceans, rivers, and other inland waters

are being ‘squeezed’ by human activities—not so they take up less room, but so their

quality is reduced” (2016, Water Pollution: an Introduction, Para. 1). The quality

of water has been lowered everyday by pollution in various ways. As debated

above, water pollution is a serious problem today because the non-stop

development of industrialization

9 has polluted water immeasurably, affecting negatively the whole biosphere –

human, plants and organisms living in the water.

Hence Roper is worried that she feels pessimistic and even unable to pass on the

clean “stream” to her children because its water is “too dirty”, “scummy and

smells vile.” This polluted water is not only undrinkable, but it also makes its

environmental space “so foul and decayed.” The speaker thus sheds tears on the

disappearance of the clean “stream’ and “water”, along with the destroyed

environmental space

Through her representation of the conditions of the “stream” and “water” both in the

past and in the present in her poems The Stream Where I Played and Perspective on

Pollution, Roper determines the current situation and then expresses her

disappointment and hopelessness “as the dream starts to fade.” Nevertheless, she

artistically attracts attention to the grave issue of water pollution and attempts to

raise awareness about the pollution problem. She simply shows us the gravity of

issue and then sends a message not only to each of us individually but also to authorities

and leaders across the world to take necessary actions before time runs out. Otherwise,
she denotes that it may be too late: she just warns all of us about the

impending danger and threat to human health.

he warning Roper makes even becomes much stronger once she asks us in her

next poem Glimpse of a Polluted Future. Simply, she tells us what will happen if

necessary actions are not taken at once: she guides and makes us aware of the

hazard of the environmental pollution. As in her previous poems, she compares once

again the past and present in the first part of the poem as for the situations of the

environmental space. She asks the questions to make her point more vivid and

striking: Where are the birds that used to dot the sky? They're not here anymore, and I

have to wonder why. Where are the fish that used to swim in this stream? I can't see

them anymore. What does that mean? Where are the frogs that used to croak around

this lake? I can't hear them anymore. There must be some mistake. In this part of

Glimpse of a Polluted Future, in fact, Roper gives her answer to her poem A

Choking Sky. The “sky”, which is entirely chocked with the “smoke stacks”, does

not allow any living organisms to survive. That is, in this poisonous “smoke”-covered

sky, “the birds” cannot live; they either die or travel to the other places. This situation

destroys the balance of ecology. Again Roper asks, “Where are the fish that used to

swim in this stream? / I can't see them anymore. What does that mean?” as discussed

above, water pollution destroys life in the river and causes “the fish” to die or to

disappear like the birds. Likewise, she continues to ask: “Where are the frogs that used

to croak around this lake? / I can't hear them anymore. There must be some mistake.”

Then she accuses each of us of not saving the lives of “the birds”, “the fish”,
11 and “the frogs”, and the other “animals are disappearing at an alarming rate”, it is

time to say, “stop” “damaging our Earth.” Now Roper calls on everyone to take

action against the ways the nature is quickly destroyed knowingly or unknowingly. It

is time we noticed the gravity of danger and damage done to “our Earth”: “Time to

make people see how we're, / Time to realize what it all was truly worth. / If

we don't finally band together, it may really be too late.” These three lines are of

vital importance for the message Roper is striving to make the entire world see and be

aware of the truth – the truth that we are “damaging our Earth” which nurtures and

embraces us. In a sense, she begs the entire world – individuals, authorities,

leaders and civil rights groups – to do something before it is “too late.

she recommends us to “finally band together”: she suggests a powerful collective

consciousness, awareness and action, which, she believes, will exert a great deal of

influence over those who are able to stop or reduce the gravity of damage to the

earth with a full consideration; otherwise, we will continue to destroy the clean

space which nurtures and embraces us.