The poem takes placed in different times in history
but it starts with “[t]he people who lived here before us” maybe referring to
the people who had live there recently or in the distant past. The poem’s time is fragmented and scattered
throughout. People do still “camp and
gather” suggesting the times people came together in order to achieve survival
in the past. The poem uses animals to
describe the beginning of the world such as coyote, fox,and dragonflies. The dragonflies are to illustrate the mating habits of insects. The
poem is also divided into different sections creating more of a fragmented time
line. The message is still the same
which is that of commitment and giving it all. Commitment in believing the tale of the Red
Fox is “pee[ing]” rather than a coyote used by a different Native American
tribe, culture past on by the prior generation. Then the time line shifts again
in the 3rd section with the introduction of the religion, disease,
and culture. Maybe this transition is
the foreshadowing of mating dragonflies?
Maybe the dragonflies do give it their all which also include their
genetic makeup, disease, and culture? Also,
in this section there is boy playing basketball and his mother is drunk, a
byproduct of mating. The author does not mention a father which also points
toward a foreshadowing of the dragonflies mating at the end of the poem. Maybe the insects are the instructors who are
“skilled” in mating. The dragonflies find
themselves out in vast openness of nature and once they do they commit to each
other totally at that moment. Human time line is fragmented and so are the relations
with each other is like finding one other in vastness of human history. Nature has found a way to survive and
thrived. Maybe human beings are like
dragonflies traveling through time here and there and one day we mate and
separate leaving a history, like the basketball boy and his drunken
mother, a byproduct of a past mating experience. Maybe we are traveling through
time and evolving as well, and once in a while we mate but we might not give it all
or are we giving it all, like the dragonflies? Maybe we do give it all without knowing that
we do, leaving a legacy in our offspring.
I agree and then I do not as well. To me when he goes back in time that is the generation before us or our ancestors. Just like dragonflies humans go around mating and in a result they leave behind offspring here and there. Where we have been in the past we do not know and to find our own way around that is up to how our parents or whoever we have guide us. The boy playing basketball with a drunken mother does not seem to have his father in the picture. This is where I think the relation of male humans and male dragonflies relate because they just go on leaving a little part of them behind. Whether the father is past away or left, maybe that's the cause for the drunk mother. A piece of him still remains within his son thus that is how he expresses himself through playing ball.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that it is sectioned out in numbered pieces helps me understand what is happening better than if it wasn’t numbered at all. I can see that it is a timeline: broad information – specific information – then broad again. Starting with the people who lived here first (could be just about anyone), moving onto how the world was created (by anyone), then becoming more personal and easier to relate to with the talk of religion, drinking, and basketball. . . most specific: fear. Ending with nature, in all its vastness - focusing in on dragonflies mating to reproduce and just continue the cycle.
ReplyDeleteWe are all part of the cycle he is writing this poem about. I think he just calls it Dragonflies Mating because humans that are very complex can relate to something so simple, yet unique creatures like dragonflies.