Quote:
Originally Posted by Jennifer Reeser
It hardly honors Mother Earth, and, in fact, rather denigrates her -- who is hallowed, among some of us. Plug in your mother's name, and see what I mean:
"We s**t on you, Mom."
Lacking any context -- lovely.
J
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Not that I want to say to say that the poem is good (it's not), but I think you're misreading the line. I take it to be doing two things:
1. On the metaphorical register, "we shit on earth" is functioning as a true (if crude) description of how humans, as a whole, treat the planet that supports them. As they admire and dream of the sky (think Elon Musk), they shit on the earth, even though it's the earth, not the sky, that supports them. The line, on this register, is accusatory.
2. But the line also can be taken literally, and there I suspect Ono wants us to think about how shit is a crucial fertilizer—in this sense it's *because* we (and other creatures) shit on earth that earth "gives birth / to our future." On this register, the poem is again contrasting our admiration of the sky with our relation to the earth, only now to suggest that something we think of as disgusting is in fact honorable and important.
In neither case do I think the poem can be plausibly read as denigrating the earth.
Anyway, there's my detailed analysis of a poem that didn't deserve it.