References of Cool

I like the references in the end of the second stanza, "Most of the ancient groves are gone, sacred to Kuan Yin and Artemis." They fit so perfectly with the chaos that is described before because Kuan Yin, also known as Guan Yin, is the East Asian goddess who "hears the sounds or cries of the World" and Artemis is the Greek goddess of the wildland, the both of them have a connection to the affairs of the Earth and the reference fits in well with the whole idea that the Earth is going through traumatic times and those two are connected and feel it which attaches the pain of the Earth through the wishes of gods.

The connection that the author makes between Lucretius and today is pretty cool how he weaves them together, "An artist in Chicago-think of a great trading city in Dacia or Thracia." That is the way that the author keeps a running dialogue with someone who is gone in a sense because he relates our trading city to today and it opens up the discussion to a new viewpoint for another person to jump in and continue the conversation that is being had in that specific section between the author and Lucretius.

My favorite thing in this entire poem hands down is the section that is long and drawn out, "The book will tell her that the gleaming appliance that kept her milk cold in the night required chlorofluorocarbons." This is one of the greatest images I think I have imagined in my head in the fact that instead of simply using the word refrigerator the author chose instead to take an artistic way of painting a refrigerator as a bad thing and he is able to tell the reader what it is and at the same time get the point across that he is talking to someone who has no idea what he is talking about. I wish I could do that with these blog posts.