The+Niagara+River+(Conrad)

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This part of the poem is symbolic to the stability of the river. "As though the river were a floor" is especially referring to how you can place heavy loads on the river, and it will still survive. The rest of the sentence refers to how much we use the river. Not only does it provide food for us, it provide transportation and entertainment.

//along the shore...//
This part of the poem refers to how we, the people, know that we are polluting the river yet we don't do anything. "As calmly as though dining room paintings were being replaced" is using a common everyday thing, dining room paintings being replaced, to compare it to how unworried we are. "the changing scenes along the shore" refers to the towns and buildings that are springing up near the Niagara River as a result of everything it has given us (seen in sentence #1)

what that means.
In this part of the poem (the very end), Kay Ryan is telling us how we don't really care much for the things that really matter that much. The Niagara River is a symbol for things that we don't appreciate enough. When Ryan says, "its is hard to remember what that means" she is referring to to how blind we are to river, and to the things the river symbolizes. In the end, we don't appreciate the things that really matter enough. Ryan also uses the use of repetition in her poem "we do know, we do know" she is saying how we know that the environment is in danger and she's emphasizing that we know but we aren't doing anything about it.

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