Saving Places- I thought I saw

Hopefully we all know what we do to the earth. The enormous consumption of Co2 and other dangerous substances, the pollution, are threatening all the living creatures. In the poem named “Saving places- I thought I saw”, written by the 10 year old girl Hannah Tobin, this message is clear and obvious. By describing the natures beautiful creatures and creations she clearly expresses the consequences of the humans “selfish” actions. But this poem has not only got a good moral, it is also well written.

When I started reading this poem, I thought it was some sort of an ovation to the nature, so how the ending of the first verse turned out really surprised me. Of course I was aware that the poem is called “I thought I saw”, but to be honest I expected a poem about a safari in the wildest of Africa. Because of this, I only became more interested when I read the sentence “It’s probably just the light of dawn”. As the ending of verse number2 had the same “conclusion” as the first one, I could see the connection, and suspected that the rest of the verses had the same negative imprint. I also understood that it could not have been written in a present point of view, in terms of that a fertile plain, a sea, an elephant, a kangaroo and so on, all can be found today.  So, instead of describing what will happen in the future, Hannah Tobin writes as they’re all gone already, died out. This made me get some sort of an insight in how it might be, and there is no doubt that it touched me. There is either no doubt that the poem is well written, consisting of well picked words and adjectives.

Rhythm and rime are characteristics when it comes to poems. Rime is not always necessary, but in this case the poem consists both. Considering that it is written by a 10 year old, I was really impressed. By starting every sentence (as well as the title) with “I thought I saw” she has definitely created a good rhythm. The syllables are fitting as well, and even though the meanings of every ending of the verses are quite the same, they are manifold.  This provides a poem that is not boring to read, because there are not too many repetitions. Another thing worth noticing is all the use of imagery. All of the animals, in addition to the plain and the sea, had a corresponding adjective, like for instance “the proud elephant”. Hannah also described what they are doing, so I even clearer could create pictures in my mind. An example could be the kingfisher, flashing his red- orange chest. The author, Hannah, has also managed to build the story in a way that makes the tension rise. Therefore, the last sentence really stands out, and finishes the poem in a great way. “All these things, they could not be- they all died out because of me”, it says. It made me understand the whole poem better, and it came like some sort of a disclosure, that they all were dead and that it was her ( meaning the humans) fault.

Overall, this is a great poem. It consists of a clear message with a good moral, descriptions that once you read them will turn into pictures in your head, and both rhythm and rime. It also has a certain development, and the last sentence is like a disclosure. If there has to be one thing that could be better, it might be the connection between verse number 1 and the ending. Since a plain and a sea neither are humans nor animals, it would be wrong to say “they all died out”. This is not a great mistake though, and it does not destroy my total impression.

Photo: http://www.whiteelephant.co.za/?welgallerynew&global%5BcategoryISbb_datagallery_categoriesID%5D=25

A beautiful dream.

We were given the task to write a text connected to the movie "Mississippi burning" and the segregation in the U.S during the 1960's. In this blog I will pretend to be a girl living at this time, and tell about a terrible as well as a beautiful dream. I'll also reflect on the relationship between the black and white people. I hope you like it...

Dear diary.


I had a dream last night, a beautiful dream. I don't remember a lot of it, but what i remember, I'll never forget.


So in this dream, there was a man. A white man, who slowly walked against me. We were in the town, but noone else was there. It was all empty, exept form me and the man. I remember that i became afraid. I had no idea of what he would do to me. I thought of terrifying stories. Stories about white men that abused black children, and forced them to do everything they were told to.


My legs wanted to run. I wanted to escape, before he stood there, right in front of me. Before it was too late. Then, when I was supposed to turn around, lift my left leg and run as fast as I could, I realized, that I was stuck. As if someone had glued me to the ground. My mouth opened. I wanted to scream, but no sound came out of it. My thoughts were all in a huge kaos. A kaos whitch grew bigger and bigger, making a noise that drowned every other sound. Including the steps of the white man. He'd now started to move faster, and I just stood there. Helpless. Scared that this would become my last day. Scared that I had to die, only 12 years old.


I didn't know that it was a dream. Everything felt so real, even though I could't make a move or a sound. Even though all I could do was waching the man getting closer and closer. I really thought i would die. That he would take a revolver up from his pocket, or maybe a knife, so that he could kill me in the most painful way. Then, instead of this, the most unexpected thing happened.


" I'm not going to hurt you" The white man said, standing only one meter in front of me. He didn't make a move now, he just looked at me. I had finally managed to close my eyes when he said this, and the sentence repeated itself in my mind several times. A warm hand landed on my shoulder. I was still unable to say anything. Not because no words would come out of my mouth, but because I couldn't find them. My mind was empty. Carefully I opened my eyes, meeting the look of the white man. "Don't be afraid", he said, " everything will be fine."


I call this a beautiful dream. When I woke up, I still had a wonderful feeling, until I realized that something like that never would happen in real life. It's weird how we can be such enemies, when we're all humans. It's weird that the one with the lightest skin should be the prettiest. The greatest. The most powerful. I really believe this is weird, but who knows? Maybe this will change once, and that everything will be fine.


I had a dream last night. A beautiful dream, and maybe it once will come true.

The selfish specie on the top of the rank

The nature is extremely important to us. It gives us everything we really need, but at the same time we are about to destroy it. Not only the woods and the sea, but the animals as well. Can we do something about it? In all the time of our existing, we humans have acted like we rule the world, as if the world was created only for us to live on. Therefore, it’s easy to forget our responsibility in taking care of the trees, the animals and the seas, which we cannot live without. We produce rubbish, hurt animals for fun and cut down a lot of trees to make tons of stupid things we don’t even need. The way people live in industrial countries today is unfair, meaning that we need three earths to accomplish that everyone can live this way. The earth can’t handle our selfishness, and this is what I’d like to focus on in this blog. - By hurting the nature, and everything that belongs to it, we can also hurt ourselves. That is what the deep ecology is all about.

Everyone and everything has a value. You can for instance look at the animals, who have the exact same right as we have to be on earth. They can also feel pain as much as happiness, and if we can try to imagine how they also can suffer, we would not dear to hurt them. Shankara, a philosophe from India, wrote this in the 800th century. I believe he had a really good point. At that time, people hunted animals to survive. They killed animals, and ate everything inside of them. They made use of the fur, as well as the hooves and intestines. They had to kill, because there was no other way to get enough food. Today, everything is different. We hunt, not only to feed ourselves; we also do it for fun. We like to kill. We hunt the animals, shoot them down, and then, when they’re dead, we brag about it. We take a photo and show it to someone else as we say something like “Look at this beautiful creature I just caught!” –Is this fear? Can we call a dead animal beautiful? In my opinion, and I’m sure many people agree with me, they look better when they’re alive. Free, in the nature where they belong.

By recycling the Sunday edition of the New York Times, 75 000 trees could be spared. In the world today, there are a lot of similar cases. It’s unbelievable how easy it is to make an effort.  But on the other side, it’s even easier to think that others will do it for you. That you don’t have to, because there are so many others who recycle, compost their food and reuse things at home. A naive thought, because this is definitely not the reality. We all have the same responsibility, and if one person doesn’t care, he or she will probably not be alone. It is important to live in the moment, but sometimes you also have to think of the consequences of what you do, and what you don’t do.

To drive the car instead of taking the bus can be very tempting and comfortable sometimes. You don’t have to bring money with you, and you don’t need to walk to a station far away from your home. An average family in an industrial country, like for instance Norway, has at least one car. Many of these families use their car(s) mostly to get to and back from work. Even if bus departures are regular, they drive instead, alone in their car with no other passengers. This is waste. If many people could travel by bus (or other public vehicles), the nature would be spared for enormous amounts of Co2. There is also a solution if there is no possibility to go by bus. You can for instance ride your bike to work, that would make you both stronger and spare the environment. Nothing is so bad, that it isn’t good for anything. We humans have learned to take the easiest way out of our problems, but if you really want to achieve something big; you have to work harder for it.

In my opinion, many of us are extremely careless. We don’t have any laws that emphasize the animal’s rights, neither the woods’, waterfalls’ or mountains’ rights. If a human got killed because of its ugliness, everyone would have reacted. If an animal got killed by the same reason, no one would care. We can learn a lot from the deep ecology, hopefully something that will make us think twice before we harm the nature, and every creature in it. As already said, three earths would be needed if everyone should live the way we do in industrial countries. In other words; the humans needs for a comfortable life destroys the nature. We are just the selfish specie on the top of the rank, which we have created.

The Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss, one of the deep ecology founders, once said that that the idea of our standard of living today include a lot that is not needed. We need to accept a lower standard of living, with a quality of life that is as high as or perhaps even higher because we learn to appreciate other values. This might take some time, but it is the way we need to go.


Sources:
Horisonter 10-Gunnar Holth og Kjell Arne Kallevik
Searching 10- Anne- Brit Fenner og Geir Nordal Pedersen


Photo: http://khonjtheeternalsearch.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-future-beholds.html