I think what I love about nature writing is attention, and the invitation to the reader to pay attention too. To attend, to wait, to see and hear and smell what we all too easily miss. And, as you say, to see how we are a part of it too. I think of how Robert Macfarlane’s writing does this, and Helen Macdonald’s (H is for Hawk), but I think my favourite nature poetry is Gerard Manley Hopkins’:
Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
I agree, Steve Croft. I loved the book The Lost Words. Unfortunately, I loaned it to someone and I'm pretty sure I'll never get it back. I now think of it as The Lost Words of The Lost Book. Oh Well.
I must highlight Robert Macfarlane as well. He writes about "landscapes and the human heart" and I'm forever inspired by his writing; to be a more conscientious reader, writer, explorer and appreciator of our creator, nature.
As Marla and Ursula note, he is also fond of gifts and has published an amazing little essay called "The Gifts of Reading". He gives books quite often as gifts and I've bought many copies of this little treasure that I give away to those I appreciate the most. In his fashion, all proceeds from the book go to Migrant Offshore Aid Station.
I agree it is the attention, the noticing, and as Mary Oliver reminds us, the prayer. I feel the sacred in nature. That sense there is a greater purpose.
This touched me, thank you. Only this morning I was surrounded by sound of hundreds of Starlings chattering away and for the moment that was all there was.
Roger, I appreciate the lines: 'I'm not drawn to a name in a book, yet I'll effort myself to become familiar'. I've long loved birds, gathered a bunch of books about them, and then proceeded to march out into nature and embark on what was more of an academic exercise and about my control than the birds themselves. Now I've put my books back on the shelf, and am free to be with them and them with me... no 'rules'... simply to 'love and listen' as you said. :)
“ the cathedral of the open” is such a beautiful line, Roger. Thank you for that. It brings to mind the ideas of stillness, lingering, and groundedness that Byung-Chul Han discusses in his book “Non-things.” Being in a cathedral is arresting—it is an enclosed space that pushes up and out of itself into openness. Even the openness of nature (as a cathedral) pushes beyond itself (maybe the rising up you write about). Both ask us to linger a while; to pause and be still, enraptured by the openness enfolding before us. And yet, in nature at least for me, I feel grounded. Maybe it is the sublime washing over me. The feeling of being small but here.
Thank you. My husband Walter loved going bird watching and it's something he taught me and left me. It will be four years in May since he died. A few weeks after he died I saw an unusual red headed woodpecker in Los Angeles sitting on a stop sign. This was a bird we enjoyed on vacations in Michigan but never before or since had I seen one near our home in Santa Monica. It felt like Walter made a special trip to say hello.
Roger, this is a beautiful tribute. I’ve always loved birds but was ignorant of ‘who is singing?’ Instead of David’s dedication that initially led to searching in books, I was gifted the information provided by Merlin, a program of the Cornell Ornithology Labs. It’s a free phone program that ‘listens’ and tells you who is singing. I often turn it on first thing in the morning. What a joy to see the unfamiliar tunes amidst the blue jays’ raucousness.
I am thankful for stories that help us see and understand that. Author Richard Powers illustrates this dramatically in “The Overstory,” a novel where part of the story shares how trees connect to and connect with one another through their roots and mycelium (fungus). The story also is about people connected through trees and to one another to try to save trees. I have also taken direct action to save the trees in my neighborhood from being cut down to widen a road.
I lived most of my life on the prairie, an area without many trees. And now I live on the East Coast, where there are many. I do think that humans show different (higher?) appreciation for parts of nature that are scarce in comparison to parts of nature that seem to be many. As we are changing the climate, will we, can we be moved to action to protect parts of nature that are becoming more scarce (species, plant life, insects, habitable areas)?
I have never been able to watch nature documentaries because, ever since I was a kid, I always got way too upset at the scenes of predators killing their prey (and eventually went on to stop eating meat from this same feeling/fear). A major revelation of nature writing, for me, is being able to explore the very natural inevitability of death and make some peace with it. I think often of the poem I first heard on this podcast, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, in the part about the panther and its prey:
"He hears the death song of his approaching prey:
I will always love you, sunrise.
I belong to the black cat with fire green eyes.
There, in the cypress tree near the morning star."
For a kid whose heart cried for the seals and gazelles (and maybe myself), the idea of a song of mutual belonging shared between predator and prey, and many other writings about death in nature, have helped me work through my own feelings about death.
Thank you for these thoughts, Emily. I too have learned about the natural cycles of birth, growth, death, and new life through nature. Having spent my career working with 'wildlife', I've also had to confront the illusions that first, we are separate from nature, but mostly that nature is beauty and peace and kindness. It is, but that is not all that it is.
Your quote from Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings reminds me of a line that I think was attributed to Edward Abbey that says something like: "Could it be that the moment before coyote's teeth clench the rabbit, the rabbit's gaze says to coyote, 'I love you' "?.
The 1st Covid year, despite the tragedies & specter of the unknown, I enjoyed one of the best years of my life. Each week nature nerding with 2 friends (slowly wandering looking at plants, trees, birds, bugs, snakes, salamanders, etc), kayaking, camping, travel via car to camp. This poem arose from that era:
Suzy, that is wonderful, thank you so much for sharing!! Your first sentence (before the poem) resonated strongly-I feel that that first year especially, but extending to those beyond gave me, and are still giving me wonderful gifts for this era of my life.
"The woods are lovely dark and deep.....". I used to think the word was lonely. It was my very old and wise neighbor who said the woods were the only place to be alone and quiet. We were grandmother/granddaughter, mother/daughter by choice and proximity.
It was not the hard farm work or raising children that sent Dorothy to woods to be alone. It was lack of respect from the marriage family. The woods didn't judge or shame or demand anything. She taught me to seek peace in the woods.
And through these many many years since, I learned you are alone and yet with the best of nonjudgemental company you will find anywhere. The birds sing, the bees buzz, the leaves rustle, the branches sway, the ground critters scamper, it's actually rather noisy when you listen. And it is the noise of nature. Not the noise of humans.
The woods taught me to hear voices that did not have the capacity to be heard by all. The woods taught me that everything, even death, has value. The woods taught me some creatures help each other and stay together, and some don't. The woods taught me that even when we humans don't see or feel or hear connections, the woods do.
This is beautiful. Your reflections remind me of the way my mother used to speak of what she learned from her childhood, growing up on an isolated farm in Saskatchewan with her dog as a companion while she roamed the fields and woods on her own.
PAT, wow! ‘ The woods taught me some creatures help each other and stay together, and some don't. ‘ That’s pure poetry! Thank you for sharing your wisdom from the Woods.
What nature writing has revealed to me is that my most fitting position within the natural world is to notice. Ironically, to simply notice does not come naturally to me. In the best nature writing, I’m thinking of the poetry of Mary Oliver and the book I am currently reading, titled “Raising Hare,” by Chloe Dalton, the discipline of these writers to simply notice helps invite me into a receptive state of mind that has the delightful effect of quelling the often useless chatter that goes on within me.
Of course, neither of these writers simply notice, but their art begins in noticing and through that they find an opening to bring their essential human experience to the writing. Likewise, this process of noticing creates the most fitting relationship between me and the natural world, one where I am less central than I might otherwise be and more connected to what I am noticing.
“Raising Hare” is lovely! Highlighting awareness that having empathy (the greatest of all gifts) reminds us to impart trust and respect — to give as much space as possible for every unique life to be what it is, naturally, without exerting self serving dominance, or control.
Thank you for mentioning Raising Hare. My absolutely favorite pandemic experience book. I loved how Chloe Dalton protected the baby hare without domesticating it. Such delicacy in her behavior and her writing.
What a pleasure this is: thinking about (and finding) my favourite nature poets and poems.
At school we had to study Ted Hughes - known as a nature writer. I disliked his poems intensely - and this is an example of the writing revealing the writer. His view of nature was coloured by his working with the gamekeeper - nature as brutal and ours to use, to an extent.
The poets I turn to, and love say as much about me as them: Wordsworth, Mary Oliver are two, but my favourite is RS Thomas. There are so many of his poems that reveal himself as part of nature as humanity, but also as part of the Welsh landscape he lived and worked in. I love: Swifts, The Bright Field and Seawatching just as three to pick at random.
Thanks for sending me to the bookshelf this rainy Sunday!
I’ve only relatively recently been introduced to RS Thomas, and have very much enjoyed those of his poems that I’ve read, even when they’re not easy to absorb. Going to find those you’ve mentioned now!
Yes, the thing I love about him is his absolute honesty - even to the point of being brutal but beneath his sometimes acerbic comments are a deep love.
Robin Wall Kimmerer's book Braiding Sweetgrass has been one of my favorite books. One of the primary issues raised in her book is land use. From the theme of land use, many questions arise: what is the history of the land, how has the land been tended to historically, what is land ownership and stewardship, what does land reclamation look like. I live in an area where there is a lot of complexity around these questions. Rusty barded wire and fence posts are prominent symbols for US Western landscapes, on and off reservations.
Carlie, thanks for highlighting this wise woman’s teachings. We have used her stories of Haudenoshonee ‘Thanksgiving Payers’ for our community Thanksgiving service for years. Robin Wall Kimmerer is so worth listening to.
For me Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain was a game changer - being with the mountain instead of climbing it. A natural at homeness with the living world. R.S. Thomas, Welsh poet and birder said: “If I’m going to be remembered at all, I suppose it’ll be on the strength of a few poems that I’ve written, [...] I hope other people will benefit from my example of one who loved to be in the open air, loved the things of this Earth, and was given the ability to both hear and see them”. The connection to awe, the numinous, the indifferent, the bigger-than-thou - to me the best nature writing (Robert MacFarlane, Rob Cowen, Thoreau, Nan Shepherd etc) elevates the mind to a higher plane by grounding the body in the phsyical, organic, living world.
Such beautiful examples Elsbethk. I think I’ve read the living mountain at least three times. A lovely sized book to carry around too. Rob McFarlane has opened my eyes and heart in all sorts of wondering ways. Thank goodness for such works.
This query, this time reminds me of once, 20 years ago, when I was overwhelmed with multiple conflicts at work, falling apart, I went for a rural bike ride and crossing a bridge about 10' long spanning a brook, I noticed water pooling about 15' across, under spreading trees. I got down and, in my camouflage/leopard bathing suit I floated and felt I was the same color as the water and pebbles below, and the sound of the wind in the leaves above seemed to be the exact frequency as the brook, which burbled south out of the pool. I saw the Rhode Island stone wall on the far side, and realized that my job was to distinguish between pebbles and boulders; to let the pebbles fall to the bottom, to use the boulders to build walls to protect my clients and or myself and our firm. I got out, bathed, almost baptized by that epiphany. This year I am retiring as a lawyer, having just completed my last stone wall, and ignoring pebbles. I relish the wonderful flow my life has taken, finding colleagues and now poetry and a rapid response team to help get through the revolting fire unleashed by the monster in charge.
Elizabeth, what a Baptism! I am grateful that the wisdom of the water and the wind gave you courage and insight. May your re-firement bring you opportunities to make Good Trouble using your special powers. Elders for Climate Action and Indivisible are great ways to work on preserving what can be saved from the fires.
Practically all the poems or parts thereof I know by heart contain nature imagery or references:
“nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands””—cummings
“though I sang in my chains like the sea” Dylan Thomas
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters, he restoreth my soul”—KJV, Psalm 23
“Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew”—Shakespeare, Hamlet
“and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart” — cummings
“Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun”—Auden
Some of these echo my own state at different times in my life; others provide an anchor; some remind me to wonder. I think they all connect me to the writer in some way, as if we are sharing a space, physical and emotional, from which to make sense of the world and our particular experience in and of it, in time and through time. I am grateful for them all different as they are. And Emily Dickinson’s
“There’s a certain slant of light” for the time in winter—or our body politic— when spring does not seem possible.
'A rat's as moral as a monk in the eyes of the real world'... speaks to me again of the lenses thru which we 'see', and how so many problems in this world (from politics to religion, etc) stem from 'imposed visions'... the 'one and only right way to see something'.
I think what I love about nature writing is attention, and the invitation to the reader to pay attention too. To attend, to wait, to see and hear and smell what we all too easily miss. And, as you say, to see how we are a part of it too. I think of how Robert Macfarlane’s writing does this, and Helen Macdonald’s (H is for Hawk), but I think my favourite nature poetry is Gerard Manley Hopkins’:
Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.
Yes, attention. Beautiful. Mary Oliver writes:
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention
Be astonished
Tell about it.
One of my very favorites!!
Mine, too! And the focus of a sermon this past Sunday that reminded me of hope.
oh! i love this
I love Robert McFarlane too - The Lost Words is a beautiful book.
I agree, Steve Croft. I loved the book The Lost Words. Unfortunately, I loaned it to someone and I'm pretty sure I'll never get it back. I now think of it as The Lost Words of The Lost Book. Oh Well.
Marla, what a lovely gift you gave to someone who must have needed it!
I must highlight Robert Macfarlane as well. He writes about "landscapes and the human heart" and I'm forever inspired by his writing; to be a more conscientious reader, writer, explorer and appreciator of our creator, nature.
As Marla and Ursula note, he is also fond of gifts and has published an amazing little essay called "The Gifts of Reading". He gives books quite often as gifts and I've bought many copies of this little treasure that I give away to those I appreciate the most. In his fashion, all proceeds from the book go to Migrant Offshore Aid Station.
I agree it is the attention, the noticing, and as Mary Oliver reminds us, the prayer. I feel the sacred in nature. That sense there is a greater purpose.
Very much agree with this comment re: attention. Robinson Jeffers is another great nature poet.
I have to confess I’m not familiar with Jeffers, but looked him up just now and read his poem “Animals”, beautiful!
Macfarlane refers to Jeffers a lot I believe in his book "Is A River Alive".
Yes, Gerard Manley Hopkins was one who came to my mind as well.
Love Hopkins too, Caitriana - his use of language is unrivalled, I think, and creates an explosion of beauty in my mind's eye...
Ah, thank you for a sweet reminder of my Dad - who admired GMH and especially this piece.
POEM ON AGING
Children are pulled from the rubble
that used to be their home. Soldiers shiver
in a trench in the dead of winter not knowing
when the next artillery barrage begins.
You realize how lucky your life has been,
despite cancer, divorce, the fog of war.
You consumed so many novels, movies,
philosophers, pundits and prophets, but
you are still trying to answer the question
of who you are -- aging and illness
teaching you that we possess nothing,
nothing is permanent. Even the self,
you thought belonged to this package
that is dying, demands a type of freedom.
You still dream, you still love, you still
take long walks in nature
discovering other pilgrims. A mockingbird
balances on a branch, repeats everything
it can mimic, as do I — we
look at each other, perhaps
only one of us wondering who we are.
That last line! How perfect.
This is beautiful, thank you
I appreciate the reminder: You still dream, you still love, you still
take long walks in nature
discovering other pilgrims. A mockingbird
balances on a branch, repeats everything
Thanks Ursula
repeats everything! *chills*
Noticing the way a dear friend gives attention to the natural moves us too...here is a poem I wrote as I thought about a friend who loved birds...
On the Death of My Friend, Who Loved Birds
I want to listen with more care.
I want the sound of birds' singing
to enter a place in my heart
that lives for song.
I will attend:
As if sitting on a small stool
in the cathedral of the open.
When the sound is around me,
I'll still, and look to see
the living ways of the singers.
I'm not drawn to a name in a book,
yet I'll effort myself to become familiar,
and knowing, and glad.
I want to love and listen
until Mystery can not but
rise up and fly.
I will take unto myself
how they pace a life
with song, how they
toss their fervent bodies to the air.
This touched me, thank you. Only this morning I was surrounded by sound of hundreds of Starlings chattering away and for the moment that was all there was.
“in the cathedral of the open.” 💚
Roger, I appreciate the lines: 'I'm not drawn to a name in a book, yet I'll effort myself to become familiar'. I've long loved birds, gathered a bunch of books about them, and then proceeded to march out into nature and embark on what was more of an academic exercise and about my control than the birds themselves. Now I've put my books back on the shelf, and am free to be with them and them with me... no 'rules'... simply to 'love and listen' as you said. :)
“ the cathedral of the open” is such a beautiful line, Roger. Thank you for that. It brings to mind the ideas of stillness, lingering, and groundedness that Byung-Chul Han discusses in his book “Non-things.” Being in a cathedral is arresting—it is an enclosed space that pushes up and out of itself into openness. Even the openness of nature (as a cathedral) pushes beyond itself (maybe the rising up you write about). Both ask us to linger a while; to pause and be still, enraptured by the openness enfolding before us. And yet, in nature at least for me, I feel grounded. Maybe it is the sublime washing over me. The feeling of being small but here.
Thank you. My husband Walter loved going bird watching and it's something he taught me and left me. It will be four years in May since he died. A few weeks after he died I saw an unusual red headed woodpecker in Los Angeles sitting on a stop sign. This was a bird we enjoyed on vacations in Michigan but never before or since had I seen one near our home in Santa Monica. It felt like Walter made a special trip to say hello.
And you noticed!
How gorgeous. I very much like "in the cathedral of the open"!
Thank you for this beauty!
"... can not but rise up and fly..."
Beautiful
Oh Roger, many thanks for sharing this, especially :
I'm not drawn to a name in a book,
yet I'll effort myself to become familiar,
and knowing, and glad.
I want to love and listen
until Mystery can not but
rise up and fly.
Naming has its time and place, yet sometimes
it is more than enough to drink in the Mystery,
which like all things, is Impermanent
and will fly.
In appreciation,
Deirdre
Roger, this is a beautiful tribute. I’ve always loved birds but was ignorant of ‘who is singing?’ Instead of David’s dedication that initially led to searching in books, I was gifted the information provided by Merlin, a program of the Cornell Ornithology Labs. It’s a free phone program that ‘listens’ and tells you who is singing. I often turn it on first thing in the morning. What a joy to see the unfamiliar tunes amidst the blue jays’ raucousness.
What color are apples/mostly red/sometimes green/seldom yellow/really no other options.
Yet, another voice/the kindergartener/asserts that apples are white/“look inside.”
Yes, outlook matters.
The joys of seeing with new eyes! Love this poem.
Oh, lovely! Of course they are white....
Everything is connected.
I am thankful for stories that help us see and understand that. Author Richard Powers illustrates this dramatically in “The Overstory,” a novel where part of the story shares how trees connect to and connect with one another through their roots and mycelium (fungus). The story also is about people connected through trees and to one another to try to save trees. I have also taken direct action to save the trees in my neighborhood from being cut down to widen a road.
I lived most of my life on the prairie, an area without many trees. And now I live on the East Coast, where there are many. I do think that humans show different (higher?) appreciation for parts of nature that are scarce in comparison to parts of nature that seem to be many. As we are changing the climate, will we, can we be moved to action to protect parts of nature that are becoming more scarce (species, plant life, insects, habitable areas)?
What a book The Overstory is!
The Overstory is magnificent. Also the living breathing forest in Green Mansions
Thank you for the mention of that; will check that out!
Karen, I was given a copy of The Overstory by my son, and deeply touched by his loving gesture.
Oh yes, so thankful for "The Overstory!"
"Playground" is also beautiful, rewarding, and folds in the puzzle of AI (as "natural?").
Thank you Karen for 'The Overstory' reference... have added to my 'books to read' list! :)
There are many fans in this space, it seems. I hope you enjoy, David.
Such an incredible book!
What a wonderful way to start this day, thank you. I love this one for the example of connection to one another/grace:
The Sacraments
“I once spoke to my friend, an old squirrel, about the Sacraments –
he got so excited
and ran into a hollow in his tree and came
back holding some acorns, an owl feather,
and a ribbon he had found.
And I just smiled and said, “Yes, dear,
you understand:
everything imparts
… grace.”
Saint Francis of Assisi
I have never been able to watch nature documentaries because, ever since I was a kid, I always got way too upset at the scenes of predators killing their prey (and eventually went on to stop eating meat from this same feeling/fear). A major revelation of nature writing, for me, is being able to explore the very natural inevitability of death and make some peace with it. I think often of the poem I first heard on this podcast, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, in the part about the panther and its prey:
"He hears the death song of his approaching prey:
I will always love you, sunrise.
I belong to the black cat with fire green eyes.
There, in the cypress tree near the morning star."
For a kid whose heart cried for the seals and gazelles (and maybe myself), the idea of a song of mutual belonging shared between predator and prey, and many other writings about death in nature, have helped me work through my own feelings about death.
Thank you for these thoughts, Emily. I too have learned about the natural cycles of birth, growth, death, and new life through nature. Having spent my career working with 'wildlife', I've also had to confront the illusions that first, we are separate from nature, but mostly that nature is beauty and peace and kindness. It is, but that is not all that it is.
Your quote from Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings reminds me of a line that I think was attributed to Edward Abbey that says something like: "Could it be that the moment before coyote's teeth clench the rabbit, the rabbit's gaze says to coyote, 'I love you' "?.
The 1st Covid year, despite the tragedies & specter of the unknown, I enjoyed one of the best years of my life. Each week nature nerding with 2 friends (slowly wandering looking at plants, trees, birds, bugs, snakes, salamanders, etc), kayaking, camping, travel via car to camp. This poem arose from that era:
On My Dying Day
On my dying day let me recall
the scent of rain
as it sweeps across the sky
sheets of grey drenching fields and forests
sounds of leaves rustled by wind.
Let my mind be clear on my dying day
to remember the fragrance
of willows at the marshes’ edge
mineral smells of creeks and lakes
sun glinting on waves
the rhythm of kayak paddles
during our expeditions.
On my dying day may I be lucid
to recollect salty breezes
the expanse of ocean to far horizons
sand crunching beneath bare feet
the susurrus of waves washing ashore
sea oats swishing on dune tops.
Let my memory be intact
on my dying day to call up
views from mountain tops
hawks soaring across blue skies
lofty clouds drifting
buzzing of bees in meadows
aromas of balsam, flowers, hay.
On my dying day may my heart be full
from my time on earth with
memories of family, friends, lovers, pets.
May I drift away on my dying day
in a state of gratitude and grace.
Suzy Lawrence 2022
Suzy, that is wonderful, thank you so much for sharing!! Your first sentence (before the poem) resonated strongly-I feel that that first year especially, but extending to those beyond gave me, and are still giving me wonderful gifts for this era of my life.
Beautiful!
Suzy - what a gorgeous poem. I share your sentiments exactly. ❤️
Wonderful Suzy, and thank you.
I just completed my will and am writing to each of my three children thoughts on my life, a life well lived.
Now, if you’ll permit, I will include your poem, with attribution of course, in order to express
my joy for my time spent in this beautiful world.
You nailed it!
deirdre
Suzy - how lush and brimming….. I am always surprised when I return each year to the ocean, that you can smell the salt air blocks away!
"The woods are lovely dark and deep.....". I used to think the word was lonely. It was my very old and wise neighbor who said the woods were the only place to be alone and quiet. We were grandmother/granddaughter, mother/daughter by choice and proximity.
It was not the hard farm work or raising children that sent Dorothy to woods to be alone. It was lack of respect from the marriage family. The woods didn't judge or shame or demand anything. She taught me to seek peace in the woods.
And through these many many years since, I learned you are alone and yet with the best of nonjudgemental company you will find anywhere. The birds sing, the bees buzz, the leaves rustle, the branches sway, the ground critters scamper, it's actually rather noisy when you listen. And it is the noise of nature. Not the noise of humans.
The woods taught me to hear voices that did not have the capacity to be heard by all. The woods taught me that everything, even death, has value. The woods taught me some creatures help each other and stay together, and some don't. The woods taught me that even when we humans don't see or feel or hear connections, the woods do.
The woods taught me to write.
This is beautiful. Your reflections remind me of the way my mother used to speak of what she learned from her childhood, growing up on an isolated farm in Saskatchewan with her dog as a companion while she roamed the fields and woods on her own.
PAT, wow! ‘ The woods taught me some creatures help each other and stay together, and some don't. ‘ That’s pure poetry! Thank you for sharing your wisdom from the Woods.
What nature writing has revealed to me is that my most fitting position within the natural world is to notice. Ironically, to simply notice does not come naturally to me. In the best nature writing, I’m thinking of the poetry of Mary Oliver and the book I am currently reading, titled “Raising Hare,” by Chloe Dalton, the discipline of these writers to simply notice helps invite me into a receptive state of mind that has the delightful effect of quelling the often useless chatter that goes on within me.
Of course, neither of these writers simply notice, but their art begins in noticing and through that they find an opening to bring their essential human experience to the writing. Likewise, this process of noticing creates the most fitting relationship between me and the natural world, one where I am less central than I might otherwise be and more connected to what I am noticing.
“Raising Hare” is lovely! Highlighting awareness that having empathy (the greatest of all gifts) reminds us to impart trust and respect — to give as much space as possible for every unique life to be what it is, naturally, without exerting self serving dominance, or control.
I loved "Raising Hare" too, Tom! Such quiet observing on Chloe's part and a gentleness in her writing...
Thank you for mentioning Raising Hare. My absolutely favorite pandemic experience book. I loved how Chloe Dalton protected the baby hare without domesticating it. Such delicacy in her behavior and her writing.
What a pleasure this is: thinking about (and finding) my favourite nature poets and poems.
At school we had to study Ted Hughes - known as a nature writer. I disliked his poems intensely - and this is an example of the writing revealing the writer. His view of nature was coloured by his working with the gamekeeper - nature as brutal and ours to use, to an extent.
The poets I turn to, and love say as much about me as them: Wordsworth, Mary Oliver are two, but my favourite is RS Thomas. There are so many of his poems that reveal himself as part of nature as humanity, but also as part of the Welsh landscape he lived and worked in. I love: Swifts, The Bright Field and Seawatching just as three to pick at random.
Thanks for sending me to the bookshelf this rainy Sunday!
Thank you for mentioning Wordsworth. I'm sometimes not brave enough to say how much I loved his poetry when I was in college.
I’ve only relatively recently been introduced to RS Thomas, and have very much enjoyed those of his poems that I’ve read, even when they’re not easy to absorb. Going to find those you’ve mentioned now!
Yes, the thing I love about him is his absolute honesty - even to the point of being brutal but beneath his sometimes acerbic comments are a deep love.
Robin Wall Kimmerer's book Braiding Sweetgrass has been one of my favorite books. One of the primary issues raised in her book is land use. From the theme of land use, many questions arise: what is the history of the land, how has the land been tended to historically, what is land ownership and stewardship, what does land reclamation look like. I live in an area where there is a lot of complexity around these questions. Rusty barded wire and fence posts are prominent symbols for US Western landscapes, on and off reservations.
I love her writing and thinking - I'm just re-reading Gathering Moss. There's a lovely interview with her on the On Being podcast
I need to read that one.
Carlie, thanks for highlighting this wise woman’s teachings. We have used her stories of Haudenoshonee ‘Thanksgiving Payers’ for our community Thanksgiving service for years. Robin Wall Kimmerer is so worth listening to.
Yes, we read it at Thanksgiving too.😊
For me Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain was a game changer - being with the mountain instead of climbing it. A natural at homeness with the living world. R.S. Thomas, Welsh poet and birder said: “If I’m going to be remembered at all, I suppose it’ll be on the strength of a few poems that I’ve written, [...] I hope other people will benefit from my example of one who loved to be in the open air, loved the things of this Earth, and was given the ability to both hear and see them”. The connection to awe, the numinous, the indifferent, the bigger-than-thou - to me the best nature writing (Robert MacFarlane, Rob Cowen, Thoreau, Nan Shepherd etc) elevates the mind to a higher plane by grounding the body in the phsyical, organic, living world.
Such beautiful examples Elsbethk. I think I’ve read the living mountain at least three times. A lovely sized book to carry around too. Rob McFarlane has opened my eyes and heart in all sorts of wondering ways. Thank goodness for such works.
This query, this time reminds me of once, 20 years ago, when I was overwhelmed with multiple conflicts at work, falling apart, I went for a rural bike ride and crossing a bridge about 10' long spanning a brook, I noticed water pooling about 15' across, under spreading trees. I got down and, in my camouflage/leopard bathing suit I floated and felt I was the same color as the water and pebbles below, and the sound of the wind in the leaves above seemed to be the exact frequency as the brook, which burbled south out of the pool. I saw the Rhode Island stone wall on the far side, and realized that my job was to distinguish between pebbles and boulders; to let the pebbles fall to the bottom, to use the boulders to build walls to protect my clients and or myself and our firm. I got out, bathed, almost baptized by that epiphany. This year I am retiring as a lawyer, having just completed my last stone wall, and ignoring pebbles. I relish the wonderful flow my life has taken, finding colleagues and now poetry and a rapid response team to help get through the revolting fire unleashed by the monster in charge.
Elizabeth, what a Baptism! I am grateful that the wisdom of the water and the wind gave you courage and insight. May your re-firement bring you opportunities to make Good Trouble using your special powers. Elders for Climate Action and Indivisible are great ways to work on preserving what can be saved from the fires.
Thank you Patty
Practically all the poems or parts thereof I know by heart contain nature imagery or references:
“nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands””—cummings
“though I sang in my chains like the sea” Dylan Thomas
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters, he restoreth my soul”—KJV, Psalm 23
“Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew”—Shakespeare, Hamlet
“and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart” — cummings
“Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun”—Auden
Some of these echo my own state at different times in my life; others provide an anchor; some remind me to wonder. I think they all connect me to the writer in some way, as if we are sharing a space, physical and emotional, from which to make sense of the world and our particular experience in and of it, in time and through time. I am grateful for them all different as they are. And Emily Dickinson’s
“There’s a certain slant of light” for the time in winter—or our body politic— when spring does not seem possible.
Poet Sam Hamill's poem, "What the Water Knows" continues to resonate:
What the mouth sings, the soul must learn to forgive.
A rat’s as moral as a monk in the eyes of the real world.
Still, the heart is a river
pouring from itself, a river that cannot be crossed.
It opens on a bay
and turns back upon itself as the tide comes in,
it carries the cry of the loon and the salts
of the unutterably human.
A distant eagle enters the mouth of a river
salmon no longer run and his wide wings glide
upstream until he disappears
into the nothing from which he came. Only the thought remains.
Lacking the eagle’s cunning or the wisdom of the sparrow,
where shall I turn, drowning in sorrow?
Who will know what the trees know, the spidery patience
of young maple or what the willows confess?
Let me be water. The heart pours out in waves.
Listen to what the water says.
Wind, be a friend.
There’s nothing I couldn’t forgive.
'A rat's as moral as a monk in the eyes of the real world'... speaks to me again of the lenses thru which we 'see', and how so many problems in this world (from politics to religion, etc) stem from 'imposed visions'... the 'one and only right way to see something'.
Oh this is so wonderful. Thank you Galen!
Galen - Thanks for this gorgeous reminder!