Passage: Cross-Purposes
Cross-Purposes
What I am is built: concrete and steel. I defy gravity. I am what every athlete wants: to remain at the apex of the leap, up in the air. And yet I am useful, too: cars, trucks, people, even trains make their way across my broad back. Swallows and ospreys nest in my trusses.
What I am is motion. I am water, and I am older than anything else you know. No human built me. I am gravity’s best friend; I pool and flow wherever gravity takes me. I am the blood flowing in the runner’s chest, and I catch everything: from the hills, the mountains. It all washes down through me.
What you are is an accident, what happens to rain when rain gives in to Earth’s gravitational pull. You are some tears dribbling from a mountain’s eye, running down the pavements of small towns, into the cities, to the sea. You are the path of least resistance.
What I am is power. You, of course, have none: you are a static lump, an artifact slowly decaying. But my regal flow nourishes grasses, permits empires to rise. Those who made you will break you, in time, replacing you with yet another clumsy structure. I have seen. I know.
“Clumsy”? Being rebuilt makes me a friend of time, does it not? And it means that I have siblings—those “clumsy” structures, my sisters and brothers. We stitch across the rip you make. We are steel thread to the human needle. We bind you up. We sew you.
And I sow into you; in every cranny of your superstructure my vapors cling. They bring out your softness, your rust. Boast your best, and boast better yet. I am listening to the bright hum of the wind in your wires. Because I am, above all else, patient. I will wait for you.
ospreys: large birds
How does the form of the poem contribute to its meaning?
- AThe use of an equal number of lines in each stanza emphasizes that both speakers are equally important.
- BThe use of italics in some of the stanzas indicates the increasing tension between the structure and the water.
- CThe alternating positions of the stanzas highlight the opposing points of view of the speakers.
- DThe lack of a regular rhyme scheme or meter reflects the way the water changes the structure and the way the water itself changes.
Show the answer
Correct answer: C
The answer is (C)
The question asks how the form of the poem contributes to its meaning. The alternating positions of the stanzas create the appearance of a conversation in which the speakers share their opposing points of view, making Option C correct.
Option A is incorrect because the number of lines for each stanza does not emphasize the importance of the two speakers.
Option B is incorrect because italics are used mainly to designate the voice of the second speaker (the water).
Option D is incorrect because the lack of rhyme scheme or meter is intended to create a conversational tone, rather than reflect the changes the water causes or experiences.