1630 Nature poems

There is another way to enter an apple: a worm’s way. The small, round door closes behind her. The world and all its necessities ripen around her like a room. In the sweet marrow of a bone, the maggot does not remember the wingspread of the mother, the green shine of her body, nor even the last breath of the dying deer. I, too, have forgotten how I came here, breathing this sweet wind, drinking rain, encased by the limits of what I can imagine and by a husk of stars.

There was this bear cam on the Internet. It was pointed at a place called Katmai National Park, Alaska. A few years ago my friend sent me a link to it. I would watch it sometimes but I never saw any bears. Maybe it was bad luck because my friend said she saw bears. All I ever saw was the enormous river rushing and the tall pines in the background doing nothing. I mean, that was OK, of course. I loved the sound of the river and wind in trees and the sheer thrill that such a sublime nothingness could be witnessed like this. But I wanted to see a bear. It seemed even more thrilling to be typing in a cubicle and suddenly out of nowhere there’s a bear on your screen that maybe 50 other people in the world catch a glimpse of. Maybe they are on a break from Facebook or filling out a spreadsheet and BOOM, a bear. So I thought while I was writing this that I would just check the bear cam online and sure enough a fat bear is in the middle of the river eating a salmon right there in the Katmai National Park. I get up from my desk and tell my colleagues “You guys, come here!” and my colleagues come in my office but by the time they run in the bear crosses the river, or pixelated screen or whatever, salmon in his jaws and the only thing there is the river and trees and they say, “Sandra, this is boring,” and walk back to their own offices.

They call the mountain Carlos because it is brown, though its purple slopes at dusk suggest other names. Those who name it have to brand the earth with something they know— a name, a face, even the heat that says "I know Carlos and he is the mountain. I am going to cover his eyes in light." They call its peak Carlos because it is the sharpest feature on the face that stares south, watching people cross the border, pausing to catch their breath and meet the cliffs of Carlos because he is there. When they ascend the canyons inside the face, Carlos shifts and the climbers discover what he has done. The moving earth changes everything and they are forced to stop playing the game of naming a mountain that keeps touching the sun.

They inherit a packet of earth hear its coins clank in a tin box push them aside reap thick strands of night from thinning black hair. They climb the staircase clenching branches of pens filled with ducks’ blood and follow the butcher’s bed into this room— goose feathers thorning out of their eyes. They promise to never look down again down is just a speck of globe dust just coins clanking in the tin box.

We come gnawed by need on hands and knees. As a creature (nosing) grubble-seeks a spring. As bendy-spined as bandy snakes through saltshrub yaupon needle-brake. For darkling green; for thorn-surround. This absorbing quaggy crample-ground. Of   briar-canes (intervolved with kudzu-mesh) and mold. Of   these convoluted vines we grasp to suck. To taste the pith — the lumen the cell-sap pulse. To try to know some (soursharp) something about something. Lumen is as lumen does. ‘A little room for turmoil to grow lucid in.’

from Sonnets, Third Series IV Thin little leaves of wood fern, ribbed and toothed, Long curved sail needles of the green pitch pine, With common sandgrass, skirt the horizon line, And over these the incorruptible blue! Here let me gently lie and softly view All world asperities, lightly touched and smoothed As by his gracious hand, the great Bestower. What though the year be late? some colors run Yet through the dry, some links of melody. Still let me be, by such, assuaged and soothed And happier made, as when, our schoolday done, We hunted on from flower to frosty flower, Tattered and dim, the last red butterfly, Or the old grasshopper molasses-mouthed.

From King Arthur COMUS Your hay it is mow'd, and your corn is reap'd; Your barns will be full, and your hovels heap'd: Come, my boys, come; Come, my boys, come; And merrily roar out Harvest Home. CHORUS Come, my boys, come; Come, my boys, come; And merrily roar out Harvest Home. MAN We ha' cheated the parson, we'll cheat him agen, For why should a blockhead ha' one in ten? One in ten, One in ten, For why should a blockhead ha' one in ten? For prating so long like a book-learn'd sot, Till pudding and dumplin burn to pot, Burn to pot, Burn to pot, Till pudding and dumplin burn to pot. CHORUS Burn to pot, Burn to pot, Till pudding and dumplin burn to pot. We'll toss off our ale till we canno' stand, And Hoigh for the honour of Old England: Old England, Old England, And Hoigh for the honour of Old England. CHORUS Old England, Old England, And Hoigh for the honour of Old England.

I had not thought of violets late, The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet In wistful April days, when lovers mate And wander through the fields in raptures sweet. The thought of violets meant florists' shops, And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine; And garish lights, and mincing little fops And cabarets and soaps, and deadening wines. So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed, I had forgot wide fields; and clear brown streams; The perfect loveliness that God has made,— Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams. And now—unwittingly, you've made me dream Of violets, and my soul's forgotten gleam.

Cover me with your everlasting arms, Ye guardian giants of this solitude! From the ill-sight of men, and from the rude, Tumultuous din of yon wild world’s alarms! Oh, knit your mighty limbs around, above, And close me in for ever! let me dwell With the wood spirits, in the darkest cell That ever with your verdant locks ye wove. The air is full of countless voices, joined In one eternal hymn; the whispering wind, The shuddering leaves, the hidden water springs, The work-song of the bees, whose honeyed wings Hang in the golden tresses of the lime, Or buried lie in purple beds of thyme.

Who shall invoke her, who shall be her priest, With single rites the common debt to pay? On some green headland fronting to the East Our fairest boy shall kneel at break of day. Naked, uplifting in a laden tray New milk and honey and sweet-tinctured wine, Not without twigs of clustering apple-spray To wreath a garland for Our Lady's shrine. The morning planet poised above the sea Shall drop sweet influence through her drowsing lid; Dew-drenched, his delicate virginity Shall scarce disturb the flowers he kneels amid, That, waked so lightly, shall lift up their eyes, Cushion his knees, and nod between his thighs.