Loo-Wit, a poem by Wendy Rose, explains the legendary Mt. St. Helens getting ready for her famous “singing” act. In this poem Loo Wit prepares for the famous day she blew her top and sang like there was no tomorrow. Rose shows us (using personification) that although Loo Wit isn’t a person she may have feelings that are completely different to those of humans.
In the beginning Loo Wit is calm and unbothered. “Centuries of cedar have bound her to earth” [Rose, 752]. She is very large and has many trees and other wildlife/ plants growing or living on top of her. Before people came and started hiking, working, and sometimes living on her she was quite undisturbed. “Finally up” she is beginning to wake and roar!
After she wakes there is trembling among her surface. “Light appears with the shudder of her slopes” [Rose, 753]. She starts to cry; with her crying comes an earthquake, which just makes things worse! She is still only waking though not yet ready to fully blow. Hikers hear her cries of pain because “Around her machinery growls, snarls, and plows, great patches of her skin” [Rose, 753]. Humans working on her day and night now she’s ready to give them a fright!
Finally, she is ready to blow, wiping away- Oh No! “Blackberries unravel, stones dislodge” [Rose, 753]. Completely up and angry now, Loo Wit starts her rampage through the town. “With one free hand she finds her weapons and raises them high” [Rose, 754]. Her innards come out so easily it’s as if it was meant to be, like there was a door and her anger was the key. Now the whole world can hear her song because “Loo Wit sings and sings and sings!” [Rose, 754].
Rose describes the frightful day when Mt. St. Helens burst and showered the world with her ashes. The global truth – although her exploding wasn’t what anyone wanted it’s what happened, and of course Loo Wit doesn’t have feelings like people, but we still have to realize that these things happen and occasionally they may seem as though they happen for a reason.