"For Granted"
We put blinds on the windows by day
break, without appreciating the light;
hard to miss but we try to anyway.
The dirt
untended is always neglected-
Feel the pain and the hurt.
The breeze calls to us
outside, but no one answers.
Air conditioning takes over,
takes over the bus.
The rivers flow
out to the reservoir
to the faucets they go.
Paper cups and plates
made of trees, did we ever think?
Feast for the people!
There's no reason to celebrate.
Our livelihoods depend on one another:
Nature and Man together.
We must treat it like our brother.
Explanation
One theme that Wilbur concentrates on is nature, more specifically how man and nature must coalesce together in this world like in his poem, "Advice to a Prophet." In this poem that I wrote, I attempt to convey the message that we take nature and its riches for granted. There is use of enjambment here to separate man and nature but towards the end, the enjambment is no longer used in order to make the point that man and nature have learned to cooperate. Wilbur uses enjambment effectively and his poems using this literary technique still flow smoothly. I also create an illusion that this poem rhymes in the beginning with words such as flow and go but notice how the first line in each of the first four stanzas never are complete thoughts. This is done to create the illusion that nature and man are content and structurally sound but that is not the case.