Photo Essay & Nat'l Poetry Month
Whether you are a brand new reader or have been following along with me since January, I appreciate you taking the time to read! With this week’s post I’ve completed three months here on Substack…whoop! I’m grateful to the welcoming community of writers on the platform, the kindness and sincerity shown in Notes on the app, and that so many of you have an interest in the topics I write about…including black vultures.
I closed March with a photo essay, which was very well received. So, perhaps that starts a habit where I close each month looking back in photos, looking forward with some writing, and sharing some of my favorite authors and their work.
Enjoy!
April’s Transformation
In my little corner of Tennessee, the first promise of Spring arrives in January with yellow daffodils, followed by purple crocuses within weeks. Then the season inches forward for all of February and March, revealing tiny wildflowers for all who assume a slow, hunched-over walk through forest hollows and along creekbeds.
Perhaps it’s that two months of slow-walking in search of colorful harbingers that makes April such a stand up and take notice surprise. With a little rain and bright sun, the trees (searches non-violent synonyms for explode) …burst, seemingly overnight.
This makes me think of autumn and how, every year, I long for the leaves to fall more slowly, for the season to last longer. This year, I found myself wishing April could slow down just a bit too. I’m not ready for the cicada emergence in May, the rampant biting bugs of June, the humidity of July. But maybe Mother Nature knows something about change: prepare and then leap…quickly!
And if we remember to look down, and up, maybe we won’t miss it.
National Poetry Month
Once upon a time, I didn’t enjoy poetry. The ‘thous’ and ‘thuses’ and overly-rhymy lines…not for me. But I just hadn’t found ‘my people’ yet. Like when you attend an event alone or move to a new city, and it can be easy to dismiss the party or the place simply because we haven’t found our people.
I’m not someone who can name the time and place when I first read works by my favorites. I also can’t remember a time when I did not know of their words:
Mary Oliver
Wendell Berry
Jack Gilbert
When I crave poetry, I reach for the worlds they have put to the page. So in the space between the remaining photos, I’m excited to share three of my favorite poems by these writers.
Woods by Wendell Berry
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.
When I Am Among The Trees by Mary Oliver
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”And if you enjoy that poem by Mary Oliver, you may also enjoy this post from March.
Here’s a look at how the black vulture story began.
Horses at Midnight Without a Moon by Jack Gilbert
Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there’s music in us. Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.
The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets. It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.
What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,
can hear them breathing.
Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun.
A Curious Nature is a weekly dose of curiosity and inspiration delivered to your email inbox each Sunday. Featuring my essays and stories about the natural world, as well as journaling prompts and works from some of my favorite writers, I hope to provide readers with kindling for your own creative fire and insights about the natural world. Mostly, I hope to nurture a community for curiosity and wonder. Thank you for being here.
If you enjoyed this week’s edition of A Curious Nature, I hope you may choose to subscribe, drop your thoughts below, click the heart, or share with a friend.
Thank you!
Your Substack post is like a nest full of eggs and other beautiful things. Thank you.