Question

What is the main message Linda Hogan conveys about the relationship between humans and sea turtles in her poem?

(1 point)
Responses

The relationship between humans and turtles is always peaceful.
The relationship between humans and turtles is always peaceful.

Human technology can repair any damage done to the environment.
Human technology can repair any damage done to the environment.

Humans have a destructive impact on nature they do not understand.
Humans have a destructive impact on nature they do not understand.

Industrial progress is more important to humans than wildlife is.
Industrial progress is more important to humans than wildlife is.
Song for the Turtles in the Gulf By Linda Hogan
We had been together so very long,

you willing to swim with me

just last month, myself merely small

in the ocean of splendor and light,

the reflections and distortions of us,

and now when I see the man from British Petroleum

lift you up dead from the plastic bin of death,

he with a smile, you burned

and covered with red-black oil, torched

and pained, all I can think is that I loved your life,

the very air you exhaled when you rose,

old great mother, the beautiful swimmer,

the mosaic growth of shell

so detailed, no part of you

simple, meaningless,

or able to be created

by any human,

only destroyed.

How can they learn

the secret importance

of your beaten heart,

the eyes of another intelligence

than ours, maybe greater,

with claws, flippers, plastron1

Forgive us for being thrown off true,

for our trespasses2

in the eddies of the water

where we first walked.



1. the part of a turtle’s shell that forms the underside

2. trespasses is a synonym for sins; lines 26-27 allude to a Christian prayer that includes the line “forgive us our trespasses”

Answer 1

Humans have a destructive impact on nature they do not understand.

The poem describes humans harming turtles (oil, burning, "plastic bin of death"), expresses sorrow and asks forgiveness, and emphasizes that turtles’ life and intelligence are beyond human creation and are only being destroyed.