Gary Snyder Poems Round 2

In the Section of Turtle Island by Gary Snyder entitled "For the Children", I have chosen three poems that share similar themes.  The poems I chose were entitled "Tomorrow's Song," "For the Children," and "Dusty Braces."  While all three of these poems have a few different themes, the one that they all share is the passion for the preservation of nature.  In "Tomorrow's Song," Snyder in essence says that nature never had a chance of survival, or no say against its destruction.  He insinuates that the human race has turned their backs on the environment.  He advises that we live on fewer amenities.  Snyder also states that a humans' job is to work, save the wilderness, live, and die.  In "For the Children," Snyder makes the point that as the expansion and progression of urbanization goes up, the human race's hope of the sustenance of natural resources goes down.  In the last stanza he states, "stay together, learn the flowers, go light," which is his advice to the reader to work together as a unified force, embrace and appreciate nature, and use less resources.  In “Dusty Braces,” Snyder informs the reader that like the pioneers that he was descended from whom “killd off the cougar and grizzly,” he is also hard working.  In addition, while he wants to preserve resources rather than destroy them as his ancestors did, he still expresses deferential respect by bowing nine times.  Overall, Snyder takes different approaches in his attempt to raise awareness of the need for preservation of natural resources in the aforementioned poems.  All three poems express not only the dire importance of conservation, but also the need for humans to begin to survive on less amounts of resources.