Terry Shen 2B/07

poem

Did Man never pause to think

That one day, some day

When we are dead and gone

Only the trees will remain

Perhaps God’s only forte.

In this photograph, trees are silhouetted against an ominous-looking sky. What first struck me was the morbidity of the photograph and how poorly the lighting had turned out. Initially, I had dismissed the photo quality as a result of a faulty shot on my camera’s part. However, upon closer inspection, I realized the beauty of the picture, as it portrayed the endless trees reaching up towards the sky, much like the bars of a jail cell. This led me to realize that hardly anybody nowadays actually takes the time out to observe and appreciate nature. Finally, I understood what the crazy Romantic poets were talking about. Their time, which was one of mass-industrialization and globalization, is hardly any different from ours now. It used to be that people need only step outside to be enveloped in nature; nowadays we have to drive halfway across the country for that same privilege. All that the Romantic poets were doing was lamenting the lack of appreciation Man was according Nature, and perhaps that’s the same thing I’m doing now. (albeit in a more tech-savvy way)