Commonlit : SONG FOR THE TURTLES IN THE GULF what theme does this poem express about humans and nature? Here the poem I just need help with this last question 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, plastron.

Forgive us for being thrown off true,

for our trespasses,

in the eddies
of the water

where we first walked.