Posts Tagged nature

Unseasonably warm weather continues here in the North Country. A mild November has given way to a mild December. Instead of snow we have days of fog, gray skies, and brown grass.

This winter I am reading and re-reading Thoreau with an eye to arriving next spring in different place: poetically, philosophically, and ontologically.

Ontology is a word I hear seldom in my work-a-day world (read that never), where once it was such a prevalent word in all my worlds: work, academic, and reading.

For the American thinker especially, Nature is the natural (pun intended) starting place to begin to talk about philosophy and theology, about being itself. Nature and our relationship with Nature… the dance of being that is our spiritual and artistic font.

Reading Thoreau in the winter is like spending the summer in the wilderness. It is restorative and re-creative. It is an intellectual pilgrimage, The Way of Nature.

This week, a few brief quotes about trees and water.

Enjoy!

 

On Trees
I stopped short in the path today to admire how the trees grow up without forethought regardless of the time and circumstances. They do not wait as men do— now is the golden age of the sapling— Earth, air, sun, and rain, are occasion enough….

On Lakes and Rivers
I should wither and dry up if it were not for lakes and rivers. I am conscious that my body derives its genesis from their waters, as much as the muskrat or the herbage on their brink. The thought of Walden in the woods yonder makes me supple jointed and limber for the duties of the day. Sometimes I thirst for it. There it lies all the year reflecting the sky— and from its surface there seems to go up a pillar of ether, which bridges over the space between earth and heaven. Water seems a middle element between earth and air. The most fluid in which man can float. Across the surface of every lake there sweeps a hushed music.

 

 

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It is the unflagging beauty of the writing, day after day, that confirms [Thoreau's Journals] greatness among writers’ journals. ~ Alfred Kazin

Here in the North Country, duck season has opened. In the mornings, we hear the echo of shotgun blasts from the river bottom. I have never been a hunter myself but it is a sound that always leaves me smiling.

Walking along the edge of the wildlife refuge this week we heard the sound of duck-calling and across the river spotted a hunter  standing up in his blind. He was facing south with his back to us and to the steep riverbank and broad river between us. Far below him, swimming unnoticed, a single pied-billed grebe paddled and dived in the slow moving river.

Farther down the trail at one of the beaver ponds that parallel the river, we came across a dozen wild turkeys who tried to move as quietly as they could through the dry leaves. Hiding is difficult in late autumn woodlands.

Thoreau’s Journals read like prose poetry. It is what makes his Journals for me, my favorite of all his writings. At 47 manuscript volumes and seven million words, his journals are one of the great literary works of the western world. They would be a daunting undertaking if it were not for the number of redacted editions that are available in the public domain.

As I have said before on previous Thoreau Thursdays, I read Thoreau because reading him is “like spending time in the wilderness that he so loved: it restores your soul.”

On an overcast October day, Thoreau seems like just the thing.

Enjoy!

A few quotes from Thoreau’s Journals

 

Oct. 24. Every part of nature teaches that the passing away of one life is the making room for another. The oak dies down to the ground, leaving within its rind a rich virgin mould, which will impart a vigorous life to an infant forest. The pine leaves a sandy and sterile soil, the harder woods a strong and fruitful mould. So this constant abrasion and decay makes the soil of my future growth. As I live now so shall I reap. If I grow pines and birches, my virgin mould will not sustain the oak; but pines and birches, or, perchance, weeds and brambles, will constitute my second growth. [Thoreau, Henry David; Searls, Damion (2011-11-16). The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861 (New York Review Books Classics) (p. 3). Random House Inc Clients. Kindle Edition.]

 

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WHAT TO DO
March 5. But what does all this scribbling amount to? What is now scribbled in the heat of the moment one can contemplate with somewhat of satisfaction, but alas! to-morrow— aye, to-night— it is stale, flat, and unprofitable,— in fine, is not, only its shell remains, like some red parboiled lobster-shell which, kicked aside never so often, still stares at you in the path. [Thoreau, Henry David; Searls, Damion (2011-11-16). The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861 (New York Review Books Classics) (p. 6). Random House Inc Clients. Kindle Edition.]

 

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COMPOSITION
March 7. We should not endeavor coolly to analyze our thoughts, but, keeping the pen even and parallel with the current, make an accurate transcript of them. Impulse is, after all, the best linguist, and for his logic, if not conformable to Aristotle, it cannot fail to be most convincing. The nearer we approach to a complete but simple transcript of our thought the more tolerable will be the piece, for we can endure to consider ourselves in a state of passivity or in involuntary action, but rarely our efforts, and least of all our rare efforts. [Thoreau, Henry David; Searls, Damion (2011-11-16). The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861 (New York Review Books Classics) (p. 6). Random House Inc Clients. Kindle Edition.]

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Henry David Thoreau

I have been reading Thoreau again of late. Not Walden, but excerpts from his Journals and a few lesser-known works like Canoeing in the Wilderness.

Down the road perhaps, I may review one or two of these works here at MontanaWriter. But I will not promise anything. A restless spirit makes it difficult for me to stop long enough to review something I have already finished.

As an American writer, I read Thoreau (and Whitman and Emerson and Twain) for the same reason that a Spanish writer would read Cervantes or an English writer would read Shakespeare and Milton and Johnson. It is about literary roots.

I used to think that it was Whitman who was the first “American” writer. But reading now Thoreau’s journals I think maybe I have been wrong. Emerson, who could only have come from America, has too much of the Old World or the Continental in him. Thoreau has none of it. He is all New World and wilderness.

Maybe it would be most accurate to say: Whitman was the first “American” poet and Thoreau the first “American” writer.

Reading Thoreau is like spending time in the wilderness that he so loved: it restores your soul. And God knows… my tired soul needs all the restoration and re-energizing it can get.

Postings at MontanaWriter have been lean for quite some time now. I hope this will soon be changing. With the help of a second-job schedule change and Thoreau, I think it might.

In the meantime, I read Thoreau, I take walks along the river, and I listen.

 

How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomena to the preservation of moral and intellectual health! [Journal, 6 May 1851]

 

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I do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or modern, any adequate account of that Nature with which I am acquainted. [Journal, February 1851]

 

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The Indian…stands free and unconstrained in Nature, is her inhabitant and not her guest, and wears her easily and gracefully. But the civilized man has the habits of the house. His house is a prison. [Journal, April 1841]

 

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The tradition of the nature poem in American Literature is as old as American poetry itself. In a land of vast distances and grand landscapes, nature imprints itself “naturally” into the American psyche and self-understanding. It would not be an exaggeration to declare that there are really only two subjects for a truly “American” poet: nature and the common person.

Mary Oliver is one of our best contemporary “nature” poets. Her mastery of that tradition is what has helped make her one of the best-selling… if not the best-selling… poets in America. Her eye and images are remarkable… her language a delight.

“Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith” is a good example of what she does best, maybe better than any contemporary poet other than Wendell Berry: She reminds us of how crucial nature is to the salvation of our very humanity and souls.

On a warm August morning, Mary Oliver seems like just the thing.

Enjoy!

Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith
Every summer
I listen and look
under the sun’s brass and even
into the moonlight, but I can’t hear

anything, I can’t see anything —
not the pale roots digging down, nor the green stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,

nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,

the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker —
green gowns lofting up in the night,
showered with silk.

And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing —
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves,

the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet —
all of it
happening
beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?

One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn’s beautiful body
is sure to be there.

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Land and Sky (copyright © m.a.h. hinton)

Here in the North Country, the climatological pendulum we live under has reached the longest and hottest end of its summer arc. Our minds are on things of summer: cold beer, grilling out, parades, flowers, and trees. Lots and lots of trees.

To my Western-eyes, trees (with the exception of cottonwoods) are more often a bane than a blessing. Growing thick and quick here in the wet-center of the continent, they obscure the horizon… hiding any real view of land and sky. It is this loss of a visible horizon that is the most difficult thing for me living here in the North Country… having my vistas limited only to the spaces I can catch between trees and buildings.

So each summer by this time I find myself restless and desperate for wide-open spaces… for sky and land without limit. The urge for limitless land and vistas builds and builds until I find myself one day unable to take it any longer … and I say to Sue, “I have to get out of these trees… I have to go out where there are no trees and people to block my view.”

When that happens, Sue (ever patient… with my small madnesses) gets in the car with me and we head out… looking for prairie, for space without people and crops, without buildings and trees to limit my vision. We head west.

It is the last day of a long, hot July. Following the Mississippi Valley south into Iowa, Sue and I are spending a weekend at her alma mater and the school that Dylan will be attending in a few short weeks. It is a land of limestone hills, trout streams,… and trees. It is beautiful by any standards… but my mind remains on mountains and prairie… on unspoiled, un-limited horizons. I am thinking of the West. I am thinking of sky.

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Trail sign (copyright © m.a.h. hinton)

When I was in my early 20s, I worked trail crew on the Continental Divide Trail in the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness in Montana. It was the job of a life time. And like all such “life-time” experiences that you have when you are young and always looking towards the future… it was a moment in time that I could not fully appreciate.

Almost 30 years later now, I think often of those mountainous days… and my younger self and the much younger world I lived in then. A world before the internet and the 24-hour news cycle… before cellphones and the chainification of America.

Last week I hiked part of the Appalachian Trail with my daughters and my nephew. Since the young are always looking forward and the old behind (it is the way of time and generations, after all) my mind was moved to think often about the trails I had once worked and lived on. While my daughters and my nephew thought and talked about all the trails before them, in all the exciting places that they will surely go.

For me those shorter hikes were the completion of a symmetrical design begun three decades ago. (I can now say that I have hiked both the Continental Divide Trail and the Appalachian Trail… the circle has at last been completed.) For Dylan, Morgan, and Leigh those hikes were the beginning of their own designs… symmetrical or otherwise.

I am thinking now of mindfulness. Of living in the moment. Of how difficult that is at any age. For me the beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains drew me out of myself for small moments but soon my mind went back in time. For the young I hiked with, it drew them out of themselves for small moments but soon they turned towards dreams of the future and other places.

I try to imagine at times what it would be like to truly live and experience life in the moment each and every moment of the day. I think that is the way St. Francis must have lived… the way that all saints do. Unencumbered by the thousand things that distract and blind us, saints see the beauty of the creator in all things and in all people and in all the big and small moments of life.

That is why we are drawn to places like the Great Smoky Mountains, to poetry and art, to friends and loved ones: so we can be overwhelmed and ravished by beauty. So that we can let go of ourselves and our petty concerns and live in the moment… if only for a little while.

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Ranier Maria Rilke

On another snowy Minnesota morning, this poem by Rilke comes to mind as we “walk” into another new year. In my early 20s, Rilke was a favorite poet. In the many moves I made in those days, I lost a number of those dog-eared volumes. I still do have two of his books: Selected Poems of Ranier Maria Rilke translated by Robert Bly and Letters to a Young Poet. The latter especially shows the effects of time and usage.

In my early 20s, I lived in Chicago and Michigan, two places greatly influenced by German immigrants. It was the perfect time and place to read Rilke, like it was to read Kafka and Mann and Hesse.

Metaphor is important in Rilke’s poems. Some re-occur often so as you read his poetry those metaphors gradually take on weight and freight. Rilke is not a Symbolist but he is sometimes something very near to that.

Rilke has been translated by both Robert Bly and Galway Kinnell among others. I have read a few of Kinnell’s translations and like them very much. I am more familiar, though, with Bly’s. Bly is the translator of this one.

I like the image in this poem of walking toward a sunny hill with the wind on our faces. Enjoy!

A Walk

My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance-

and charges us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave…
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

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German stamp of poet Pablo Neruda

When you are reading a translation of a famous poet or poem, you have to assume that you are missing much that makes that poet great or that poem memorable. How do poetics work in that language you do not know? What subtle and not-so subtle language rhythms and musicality are you missing? What do the exact words evoke and echo in the original language? If you cannot read the poetry in the original language, there are a myriad of things you can never know.

In the same way, when you like a translated poet or poem very much you never know if you are admiring more the poet or the translator. This is not so true with Neruda. When you read Neruda, you feel that any translation, even a poor one, could not fully diminish the inherent artistry. When you read Neruda, even if you do not speak or read a single word of Spanish, you still sense the full weight of his genius and power.

On a cold Friday morning, a Neruda poem is just the thing.

Enjoy!

Bird

It was passed from one bird to another,
the whole gift of the day.
The day went from flute to flute,
went dressed in vegetation,
in flights which opened a tunnel
through the wind would pass
to where birds were breaking open
the dense blue air -
and there, night came in.

When I returned from so many journeys,
I stayed suspended and green
between sun and geography -
I saw how wings worked,
how perfumes are transmitted
by feathery telegraph,
and from above I saw the path,
the springs and the roof tiles,
the fishermen at their trades,
the trousers of the foam;
I saw it all from my green sky.
I had no more alphabet
than the swallows in their courses,
the tiny, shining water
of the small bird on fire
which dances out of the pollen.

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On a cold November morning, I find myself dreaming already of spring. Winter used to seem merely a nuisance but as I have gotten older it has turned more and more into a cross… one I very reluctantly bear.

Wendell Berry’s small poem “Woods” seems like the perfect tonic on a day like today. Berry’s poetry at its best bears witness to the three part relationship between Creator and creation and creature.

On this cold Thanksgiving morning, a poem about spring, and God’s wonderful and “wild blessings’ seems like a natural fit. Enjoy!

Woods

I part the out thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
there is singing around me.
Though I am dark
there is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
there is flight around me.

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Robert Frost, that most American of poets, is famous for saying of free verse poetry that it is “like playing tennis without a net.”

As a poet who writes almost exclusively in free verse, I suppose I should take exception. I do not. I understand his point, though I do not accept his analogy. Like many analogies (maybe all) Frost’s poet/tennis comparison is more sleight of hand than pulling aside a veil.

His famous Yankee ear lets him write in a way that traditional and non-traditional rhyme-forms fit best. It is a gift he maximizes as well as any in the 20th Century. Since Frost was a tennis player, a better analogy may have been: writing free verse for Frost would be the same as asking him to play baseball… or basketball… any  sport that he was not so gifted at.

All poets naturally move in a direction that emphasizes their strengths and hides their deficiencies. This is in part what poets mean when they say “finding their voice.” Frost is very aware of his own strengths as a poet… as well as his limitations.

“Dust of Snow” is familiar to anyone who ever took English 101. It is one of those poems that bad English teachers use to display a reading a poem in a way that emphasizes the poetics of hidden meaning,  loaded-language, and literary detective work above all else. For that reason, its true beauty is obscured more often than not for most “well-educated” readers.

“Dust of Snow” is a poem that should be savored above all for its for its language and mood. It is a perfect poem for a November day.

Dust of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

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