Symbol Analysis
Sure there's an obesity crisis in America, but that's not the kind of "thickening center" Jeffers's speaker is referring to. This center is where all of the country's corruption is, represented in particular by our speaker through cities. This makes sense, too, since cities are where men make all sorts of plans to rule the world. According to the speaker, the more America becomes an empire, the more it becomes a moldy monster that looks to gobble everyone up. Look out, world.
- Lines 1-2: America is settling in its own mold of vulgarity here as it continues to become more of an empire. "Mould" may be the thing that makes a form out of something, or it might be the stuff you ought to clean off your shower. Either one is meant to sound gross and unsightly, like a power-hungry empire. (Mmm, power…)
- Line 7: The speaker wants to keep his children away from the thickening center (a.k.a. the cities) since that's where he thinks all the bad stuff goes down. It's better for them to avoid participating in the corruption directly, since corruption is something you choose rather than something that's "compulsory."
- Line 8: What's the alternative to city living? Why, the mountains, of course. After the empire-monster gobbles up all of the cities, what's left are the mountains, probably because monsters don't really have a taste for nature (they hate produce—everyone knows that). We get that the speaker is drawing a distinction between corruption (cities) and purity (nature).