The Nature of Things

Gardening is a hobby, some might say an obsession, of mine. I live in an area with a growing season that is virtually year-round so there's always something going on in the garden and I spend a lot of time attempting to grow many different kinds of plants. Many plants thrive here and it is very rewarding to watch them grow. But there are some that I've tried to grow that have been a bust. Among those failures are daffodils. You might think daffs would be easy. I mean you can see them growing wild around old abandoned home sites with no one to care for them, but there is something about the heat and humidity here, or maybe it's the soil, or perhaps a combination of both that is inimical to the growth of daffodils. I plant them and they bloom for one year and then they disappear, so I've pretty much given up on them and moved on to other things. Poets love daffodils, of course. One always thinks of William Wordsworth, but Robert Herrick was fond of them, too, and he saw t...

I'm sure we've all experienced moments like the one that Jane Kenyon describes in her poem. Moments when we are overcome by a feeling of lethargy, languor, torpor - whatever you might choose to call it. Kenyon calls it inertia.  Inertia by Jane Kenyon My head was heavy, heavy; so was the atmosphere. I had to ask two times before my hand would scratch my ear. I thought I should be out and doing! The grass, for one thing, needed mowing. Just then a centipede reared from the spine of my open dictionary. lt tried the air with enterprising feelers, then made its way along the gorge between 202 and 203.  The valley of the shadow of death  came to mind inexorably. It can’t be easy for the left hand to know what the right is doing. And how, on such a day, when the sky is hazy and perfunctory, how does it get itself started without feeling muddled and heavy-hearted? Well, it had its fill of etymology. I watched it pull its tail over the edge of the page, and vanish In a pile of ma...

First of all, it must be admitted that not everyone has the blessing of an admirable mother. In fact, there are and have been some pretty awful mothers in the world and to the children of those mothers, all I can say is I'm sorry.  I did have an admirable mother and I learned many things from her, mostly from her actions rather than her words.  I think perhaps the most important thing I learned from her was empathy, caring for others. She spent her life caring for others. She had had a lot of tragedy in her life. The first one was losing her mother when she was only ten years old. She was a devoutly religious woman and I can still remember as a child hearing her pray that God would allow her to live until she could see me grown up. Of course, I did not then understand the source of the grief that led her to make such a prayer.  Because she had suffered loss, she understood the loss suffered by others and she always made a special effort to be there for them, to offer what...

According to the calendar, we are now well into spring in the northern hemisphere and headed toward summer, even though some parts of the northernmost hemisphere hardly seem to have advanced beyond winter yet. But Emily Dickinson assures us that summer is indeed coming. In my part of the world, it usually comes sooner than we would wish and lingers long after its welcome has worn thin. In Emily's world, it seems the most perfect of seasons. It will be Summer - eventually by Emily Dickinson It will be Summer — eventually. Ladies — with parasols — Sauntering Gentlemen — with Canes And little Girls — with Dolls — Will tint the pallid landscape — As ’twere a bright Bouquet — Tho’ drifted deep, in Parian — The Village lies — today — The Lilacs — bending many a year — Will sway with purple load — The Bees — will not despise the tune — Their Forefathers — have hummed — The Wild Rose — redden in the Bog — The Aster — on the Hill Her everlasting fashion — set — And Covenant Gentians — frill...

Langston Hughes was arguably the best and most famous African-American poet of the twentieth century. His poems spoke for people who, even one hundred years after the end of slavery, were not fully free, were not fully able to participate in what we like to think of as our democracy. His poems speak for any who are denied full participation in the political and social life of the country. They still speak for people who cannot wait for things to "take their course" because what good is freedom when they are dead? Democracy by Langston Hughes Democracy will not come Today, this year   Nor ever Through compromise and fear. I have as much right As the other fellow has  To stand On my two feet And own the land. I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.      Freedom      Is a strong seed      Planted     ...

I'm currently reading a biography of Sylvia Plath, Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark. I'll be reading it for quite some time yet for it's about a thousand pages long and I'm only up to her twentieth year when she was a student at Smith College. It is rich with the most minute details of Plath's life. She was a prolific journal keeper. She was extraordinarily explicit about her experiences. She maintained correspondences with several people who kept her letters and all of this material was available to Clark in writing her book. I've never read very much of Plath's poetry. I did read her one novel, The Bell Jar , which I found fascinating. But of course, it was the poetry for which she was primarily famous. Clark makes reference to several of her poems in the text of her book. One that she particularly references is this one, "Lady Lazarus." Throughout her early life, in her journals and correspondence Plath...

Do you ever talk to yourself? I suppose most people do at some time. I know I do. I have a friend who says she talks to herself whenever she wants to have an intelligent conversation.   Philip Schultz points out that even when we talk to others, we are often really talking to ourselves, organizing our thoughts, trying to sort things out, or understand something that has happened to us.  Or maybe we are just trying to have an intelligent conversation. Talking to Ourselves by Philip Schultz A woman in my doctor’s office last week couldn’t stop talking about Niagara Falls, the difference between dog and deer ticks, how her oldest boy, killed in Iraq, would lie with her at night in the summer grass, singing Puccini. Her eyes looked at me but saw only the saffron swirls of the quivering heavens. Yesterday, Mr. Miller, our tidy neighbor, stopped under our lopsided maple to explain how his wife of sixty years died last month of Alzheimer’s. I stood there, listening to his longin...

William Blake, he of "Tyger tyger, burning bright in the forests of the night..." fame, seems to have had a particular empathy for the things of Nature and especially for the animals of Nature as he expressed in this poem. He leaves little doubt as to what he felt for those who would abuse them. As someone else once told his followers, "If you have done it to one of the least of these..."  Auguries of Innocence by William Blake To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour A Robin Red breast in a Cage Puts all Heaven in a Rage A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons Shudders Hell thr’ all its regions A dog starvd at his Masters Gate Predicts the ruin of the State A Horse misusd upon the Road Calls to Heaven for Human blood … The Owl that calls upon the Night Speaks the Unbelievers fright He who shall hurt the little Wren Shall never be belovd by Men He who the Ox to wrath has movd S...

English a dead language? Well, perhaps in a world where people increasingly seem to communicate by emoji or by a series of letters which one has to consult Google's Urban Dictionary in order to understand what they mean, it may not be too far a stretch of the imagination. Certainly, Billy Collins' imagination stretches that far. Poem to the First Generation of People to Exist After the Death of the English Language by Billy Collins I’m not going to put a lot of work into this because you won’t be able to read it anyway, and I’ve got more important things to do this morning, not the least of which is to try to write a fairly decent poem for the people who can still read English. Who could have foreseen English finding a place in the cemetery of dead languages? I once imagined English placing flowers at the tombstones of its parents, Latin and Anglo-Saxon, but you people can actually visit its grave on a Sunday afternoon if you still have days of the week. I remember the story of...

Spring and Wordsworth just seem to go together. While spring may be the favorite season of most Nature poets, I can't think of anyone who wrote more poems that reference spring than Wordsworth. And so, even though I have featured this poem here before, it seems worth repeating. The sentiments it expresses never really grow old or stale. Lines Written in Early Spring by William Wordsworth I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man. Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; And ’tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes. The birds around me hopped and played, Their thoughts I cannot measure:— But the least motion which they made It seemed a thrill of pleasure. The budding twigs spread out their fan, To...

I remember from long ago the Vincent Price movie that Cornelius Eady writes about here and man, was it scary! Possibly not as scary though as the racist bone. But it may well be that, as Eady says, we never believe that we have it in us - the Tingler or the racist bone - until the pincers close around us.  The Racist Bone by Cornelius Eady I know this is a real thing, because When I was a kid, my big sister took me To the Capitol Theater, in my hometown Of Rochester, NY, And there was a movie that afternoon, The Tingler , which starred Vincent Price, And what I remember best about the film Was that it was about this extra, insect-like gland, that We all appeared to have been born with, But nobody but sci-fi movie scientists knew about. If it wasn’t fed properly, it would crawl up Your leg, and choke you to death with its claws! Your only hope was if you saw it coming, and knew What it was, you could scream—loud. Which we did, when it crawled across the screen. Then the lights black...

Of all the poems I read over the past week, this was the one that really grabbed me. I hope it grabs you, too, because... "When you paused for a poem it could reshape the day" Every day as a wide field, every page by Naomi Shihab Nye 1 Standing outside staring at a tree gentles our eyes We cheer to see fireflies winking again Where have our friends been all the long hours? Minds stretching beyond the field become their own skies Windows  doors grow more important Look through a word swing that sentence wide open Kneeling outside to find sturdy green glistening blossoms under the breeze that carries us silently 2 And there were so many more poems to read! Countless friends to listen to. We didn’t have to be in the same room— the great modern magic. Everywhere together now. Even scared together now from all points of the globe which lessened it somehow. Hopeful together too, exchanging winks in the dark, the little lights blinking. When your hope shrinks you might feel the hope...

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, beat poet, playwright, publisher, and free speech activist died last week at the age of 101. As a publisher, perhaps his crowning achievement was to publish Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems in 1956. He also helped other beat writers such as Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs to reach readers. Ferlinghetti's most famous collection of poems was A Coney Island of the Mind which was published in 1958. Here is one of his poems from an earlier collection, These Are My Rivers , published in 1955. I thought it was a good example of the jazzy rhythms and earthy imagery of so many of his poems. I hope you enjoy it. Away above a Harborful . . . by Lawrence Ferlinghetti Away above a harborful                                               of caul...