The Solace of Open Spaces

The Solace of Open Spaces is a well written essay. Ehrlich is insightful and thorough in her research, and the piece is well organized. She moves through the seasons (a typical characteristic, we have learned, of the nature essay), describing the countryside and its people in such a way that the reader becomes intimate with the feel of the land and the disposition of the inhabitants.

The movement of seasons allows the reader to follow the narrator through a year’s worth of understanding the land. Ehrlich begins with the winter. It is long and cold, the sun is bright but the air is frigid. Describing winter Ehrlich writes, “I was riding to find a new calf, my jeans froze to the saddle, and in the silence that such cold creates I felt like the first person on earth, or the last.” With this single line she creates a scene (one that makes her reader feel the place with her) while adding to the setting she has already begun to establish. Perhaps most importantly, though, she includes the personal insight that will permeate the remainder of the essay, the kind of mediation and reflection that makes Wyoming real and necessary.

“Spring weather,” she writes, “is capricious and mean. It snows, then blisters with heat. There have been tornadoes. They lay their elephant trunks out in the sage until they find houses, then slurp everything up and leave.” Ehrlich wants her readers to understand the varying extremes of this place, the struggle that weather and natural disasters represent for westerners. She claims that water “shaped the state,” but it is in fact the wind that makes Wyoming what it is; the “meticulous gardener,” she calls it. She uses this description to enter into a discourse on the history of the state.

Summer, then, becomes a monster of its own. The weather is excessively hot, plants kill animals, people work endlessly and sleep only occasionally. “There’s so little to do except work that people wind up in a state of idle agitation that becomes fatalistic.” Ehrlich talks of suicides, family feuds and hospital visits. “Summer,” she writes, “is a go-ahead season.” She is giving this place a life, however uninviting it may seem. She is drawing her readers in with the not-so-beautiful side of this environment.

For Ehrlich, autumn is when the real reflection begins. She creates another scene, one that speaks to the title, a solace, a space for meditation and rumination. She heads for the mountains with a friend, where the world begins to slow down and the writer begins to appreciate her surroundings. “One morning a full moon was setting in the west just as the sun was rising. I felt precariously balanced between the two.”

While there are several short scenes mixed in narrative, the essay is mostly anecdotal, but the stories are compelling nonetheless. Ehrlich introduces her readers to a place that is desolate but full of character, a world where people are simple, straight-forward, hard working. But she makes us understand, they are this way because they have to be; because the land requires it of them.

Response to Contemporary Nature Poetry

As my understanding of craft grows, I find that my appreciation for different types of poetry grows as well. But that doesn’t necessarily equate to significant changes in taste. I still prefer the linear narrative, the poem that tells a story using conventional sentence structure – basically, the accessible poem. But more than that, I prefer poetry that has an accessible “moment of realization,” or a significant line (or stanza, or word, etc.) that demonstrates the writer has learned or discovered something they weren’t already looking for. I like, particularly, when the writer communicates that moment with the reader effectively – an “aha moment” if you will. I have to admit, Mary Oliver’s poetry falls into that category with a greater ease than many of the writers we read this week. (That’s not to say these poems do not have a linear narrative, or that they are lacking proper sentence structure, or that they do not have an “aha moment). Admittedly, while I typically find something in a poem that resonates with me, something that I can grab hold of as a point of entry, I did have some difficulty with several of these selections. There are, however, a few I enjoyed. I’ll give brief examples, here, of both.

Rogers “The Hummingbird: A Seduction” is just that, a seduction. She uses the small birds as a symbol of human interaction, a sensual erotic kind of ritual, an attraction occurring in nature that mirrors the human connection. And while I had some difficulty in recognizing its greater significance, I recognize that my failure doesn’t mean that one does not exist.

W. S. Merwin’s “The Last One” is somewhat dense in its construction. The lines are all end stopped and often a single line contains what seems like more than one thought (I have no doubt this is purposeful, but I do not have a good explanation as to why). I found it hard to enter this poem and could not get a grasp on its narrative, which left its importance a greater mystery (are we talking about the last tree that stands, its shadow will remain forever a stain on the existence of its takers?). That said, “For A Coming Extinction” is a strong piece, but still not easily understood – there seems to be an agenda here – humans are a selfish breed, whose acts in aiding the extinction of other species are somehow sacrificial. The problem is I feel like I’ve got this all wrong.

“This Morning in Costa Rica” seems to be a moment of realization in its entirety, recognizing the bats’ selfless act as poem-like, a giving to the few as an act of community health. I felt like this poem touched an important nerve in the body of nature writing.

James Wright’s selections were of a more accessible nature. All of which, however, seem to demonstrate the narrator’s coming closer to nature by observing some small act of wildness.

Sheryl St. Germain’s poetry carried a greater accessibility, I felt, than most. “Big Fish” speaks of those “that have once tasted the hook” and have grown from their failures into wiser swimmers, who know how better to navigate their world, turning their mistakes into learning, their learning into life. This poem and others make use of the natural world to explore aspects of the human condition that cannot be summed up in an easy manner. The narrator in “Why I Went into the Jungle” does so to immerse herself in something that she doesn’t fully understand, something dangerous and dark – an act that she hopes (or rather deeply believes) will make her more knowledgeable in doing. In short, sometimes to truly learn something is to take a risk, let go of your fear and jump in head first.

My readings here may be somewhat flawed, but the risk, I hope, will be worth the reward. It is often through question and criticism that we learn to best appreciate something. By criticizing a few of these poems, I am really only criticizing my reading. I like to think that I’ve evolved my critical reading skills enough, at the very least, to understand that I’m not going to “get” or appreciate everything. Just as the folk singer doesn’t necessarily appreciate heavy metal, every poet isn’t going to appreciate every other poet’s work. There is a point in a writer’s life where they must recognize their own shortcomings before they can work to overcome them. Like the flower that, only through its lack of nutrients, discovers the things it needs (soil, sun and water) to reach its true potential. I am not against enjoying the poems I initially did not. Hopefully, with a little help, I will learn to. And since blossom ends so many poems, let’s just say I am open to the notion of the sky.

Mary Oliver Response

“Of course nothing stops the cold, black, curved blade from hooking forward – of course loss is the great lesson.”

- Poppies

The Wild
(a short unrevised poem in reaction to Blue Iris)

It’s amazing how much of yourself
can be found curled up, sound asleep
in the warm sheets of a small paperback book.
I woke up face down in the margin,
a trickling stream of drool running like a sentence
into a paragraph on the ocean…
or a poem about Sea Leaves.
When I opened my eyes I wasn’t sure
if I’d actually been asleep,
dreaming about being on vacation
in the Appalachian Highlands;
or if I was hard at work,
grinding my teeth into the book’s spine
like a curious raccoon on an empty stomach
looking for a camper’s scraps
hungry for whatever comes next.

Mary Oliver was “at the bravo age of sixteen” when she spent a summer embracing nature near the river in Clarion, Pennsylvania, less than thirty minutes southeast of my high school, down route 322, past the buffalo, standing still as a mountain at Hirsh’s Meats in Kossuth. In her short essay, A Blessing, Oliver tells us about living in a tent, hiking, eating potatoes, discovering strip mines, listening to owls and learning to write. Her essays, much like her poems, are as much about exploring what it means to be alive as they are about exploring the natural world. The plants and flowers she describes are a frame or a lens with which she often finds a deeper understanding of her relationship with the environment (both immediate and existential). Her poem Touch-me-nots reads:

And then I too, knowing the world,
ran through the jewel weeds
as someone, unknown and not smiling,
came down the path to where

the trap lay, stamped upon
by my very own feet,
and while I ran, the touch-me-nots
nodded affirmatively

their golden bodies –
I could not help but touch them –
and dashed forth their sleek pods,
oh, life flew around us, everywhere.

As much as I appreciate this aspect of her work, I am even more fond of the personal memories she reminded me of when she brought up this place, near Clarion, so close to one of my homes.

I was fourteen, maybe the carnival age, and I was probably a clown riding horseback with a girl at Deer Meadow Campground in Cook Forest, Pennsylvania where my parents, brothers and my sister with some family friends pitched tents in the summer of 1988. We ate camper pies cooked over the metal ring of a fire pit, listened to a David Crosby look-a-like sing American Pie, went trout fishing in a nearby stream, and I even remember drawing a comic book inspired by the Punisher (what the significance of that is, I don’t really know). I do know that there was a girl in the campground arcade who asked me to go horseback riding, and I went. And probably for the first time in my life, I didn’t mind leaving a video game behind.

It was 1988 and I was barely born, but I was absolutely alive. We had a wonderful time at Deer Meadow campground – water, electric and cable (only 27 dollars today). I don’t remember seeing any skunks, certainly none sleeping in my cot. But I do remember riding that horse, watching a girl from Emporium ride in front of me. And I remember the song The Flame playing on the radio that summer, as corny as it was, as corny as I was, and as close to nature as I will probably ever be. Thank you, Mary Oliver, thank you.

Belonging: Place 3

It’s almost dusk again at the wildlife preserve. I was lucky enough to be alone with the ducks for a few minutes (took some pictures with my phone) but soon after the cars began showing up and the kids jumped out yelling “one of the ducks is pooping! Look, Mom, it’s pooping!” which, admittedly, is funny to me. Although, for a few moments while those birds waddled up to me, just inches away, I felt some small connection, or maybe just a short peacefulness – something I suppose most nature writers (which I am not, nor will I probably ever be) are attuned to, something that I don’t have a name for. Serenity maybe? That’s almost too sentimental, too gushy. For a minute I actually felt like I belong here.

Occasionally I feel that way when I write a poem. And I mean occasionally, as though I typically don’t “belong here” – writing poetry at all. It’s such an academic, such an intellectual thing to do, and I’m just a football watching, beer drinking, working-class moron with aspirations of immortality. Yes, I want to live forever. The only way I can figure to accomplish that is to write a book, to remind people that I was around, and that I had something to say. But now I wonder if that’s really it, having something to say? There’s got to be more than that. I heard somewhere recently that writing poetry is really about giving a name to something that didn’t already have one, describing something that exists but cannot otherwise be described. Maybe that’s what I want to do. Maybe, in my sub-intellectual skull, I want to discover something and share it with you.

Anyway, you’ve gone to Utah with your mom and I’m here alone, sitting on my favorite bench, the one chained to a white oak tree. The concert of honks and quacks that typically accompanies the sound of the fountain is at an unusual intermission when I hear, coming from behind me, a thump. On further investigation, I realize there’s a fruit tree at the edge of the woods. I’m guessing by the look of the rotting balls scattered around the ground beneath that’s it’s a nectarine tree (maybe peach, but I can’t make out any fuzz on the fruit). There’s a gray squirrel performing some arboreal gymnastics, kicking around produce in the process. Thump….thump….thump….every several seconds or so. And then it stops. I’m looking up at the squirrel who’s stopped leaping, flipping and spinning around the branches. He is staring down at me, his hands are just below his chin, and it looks like he’s tapping his fingers together, the way people do when they’ve been up to something and aren’t afraid to let you know. I can almost see the sinister grin on his face. And just like that, he takes off, catapulting himself to another tree completely before disappearing among the leaves. But in that moment, that short staring contest, I felt it again, that feeling of belonging….like a heart beat, thumping. Maybe that’s what I’ll call it, this momentary feeling of being “in-touch” with nature, a heartbeat, a thumping. Then again, maybe it doesn’t need a name. Maybe what I really want is the discovering, not the discovery. Maybe what I want to share with you is not the end, not the name, not the finding, but the journey, the way there. Maybe what I want to share with you is the…

Eden Hall Farm: Response 5

Ten years ago I could run two miles in twelve minutes. I could muscle out around seventy-five push ups and just shy of a hundred sit ups. I was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, only a couple years removed from basic training. I played softball, flag football, ultimate Frisbee…I was in peak physical condition. In fact, only two years before, I’d out run the German Polizei. But that’s another story for another time. I’m writing this because the other day at Eden Hall Farm, moving several tons of dirt around, shoveling it in and out of wheelbarrows, I felt my age and lack of conditioning.

Not that the work was all that difficult, or that I got winded, but I felt it, more so than I’ve felt in a while. Probably the last time I worked like that was helping my brother dig post holes for the deck he built. We used a mechanized auger, which you would think might make the job easier…I almost think we should have dug them by hand. Regardless, that’s some real work, physical labor. It puts into perspective the kind of thing I do for a living…sit at a desk, shuffle around a carpeted (occasionally tiled) floor, pushing buttons on this thing and that, scratching reminders on sticky notes. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I get to crawl under a desk and unplug something, that gets the blood pumping. We get a lot of paper deliveries too. Moving those boxes around can work out the muscles, but at thirty-five (which includes at least fifteen years of fairly heavy beer drinking), my back is starting to give way to my front. The point, ultimately is, what is work? And I don’t mean the basic answer…doing something every day to pay the bills, that’s easy. My Uncle Lefty (owned a bowling alley, Suburban Lanes in Fairview, PA – I worked there as a pin boy for a couple weeks) had a sheet of paper pinned up in his office with this little saying (you’ve probably heard it before):

“We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much for so long with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.”

The work I’m doing now, this creative writing, poetry, non-fiction, it’s nonetheless strenuous. I can feel myself being exercised (possibly even exorcised) as I continue to write. I’m trying not to take the same approach to a piece that I’ve taken before. I’m trying to enter the point of my work from somewhere outside its frame. Indeed, I am working, and that’s what a true writer does.

I’m realizing now that this is something I’ve been struggling over for sometime, wondering why I’m drawn to this, why I keep doing it, why sometimes, I have no choice but to put something down, but also, why quite often, I don’t. It’s easy to come up with reasons why we write: emotions balled up inside your head with little to no other outlet, opinions that you feel other people should, at the very least hear, something you thought of that made you laugh out loud, simply making a connection with somebody else. All of these are reasons to stop what you’re doing or take a few minutes in the evening to sit down and jot out a few lines of verse or a paragraph or two of prose…just like exercise. But, if you don’t do it, and do it consistently, you start to get stale, start to get stiff, start to get sore. The words get tougher to find. The dirt gets heavier. The wheelbarrow tilts. And you start to count the years until it falls.

"Ecology of a Cracker Childhood": Response 4

Where Edward Abbey uses nature as a frame to explore and reflect on philosophy and personal opinion in “Desert Solitaire,” Janisse Ray seems to use family and personal history to more deeply explore nature in “Ecology of a Cracker Childhood.” The focus of her book is really the retelling of her childhood, but she weaves, rather nicely, enough description of her surroundings that nature and the environment become such a major factor they almost take over the narrative. That is not to say that she doesn’t include some personal opinion of her own. She is undoubtedly in favor of restructuring the forestry profession, evidenced in the chapter “The Kindest Cut.”

There is much more going on here than just nature and family though. I am particularly fond of the working class (you might even it call it poor or lower class) theme that resonates throughout the book. Her upbringing was one of poverty and hardship and she’s not afraid to tell us about it. Interestingly, my dad’s family owned a junkyard when he grew up in the 50’s and 60’s in a little town just southwest of Erie, Pa. Incidentally, he ended up becoming mayor of the same town (Platea). He was even responsible for bringing cable TV to the houses in the area. Ok, I’m getting off topic, but I couldn’t help but think, while reading Ray’s book, that I don’t know nearly enough about my dad’s childhood. I don’t have any junkyard stories to tell. Maybe, someday I’ll tell you how my dad’s leg caught fire and his brother, my Uncle John, put it out with his hands. But that might best be served in my memoir.

The truth is, though, I’ve often considered writing a memoir, but I am admittedly afraid of going to the darker places (places I think you need to go to if you want your story to be compelling enough to attract readers) and exposing that side of my family. Ray tackles this issue with what seems like little reservation. She’s not afraid to talk about her family’s history of mental illness or their propensity toward violence (which was primarily her grandfather). When she recounted the time she was beaten for allowing a neighbor kid to kill a snapping turtle, I was reminded of a memory I had almost forgotten. I don’t know if I was much older than ten when I walked with two other friends to Little Niagara, a small creek with a miniature waterfall just a couple miles from home. Luckily, I didn’t fall in or anything. But I was too dumb, or maybe just too young to make up a better story. When they asked, I told them where I was. My parents were judicious though; I could either take a spanking or miss the town carnival we were headed to that night. Cotton candy is just too alluring. The moral of the story is, nature sometimes leads to sore asses. Again, I’m getting off track…

I also admire the research that Janisse Ray puts into her book. She includes figures detailing the population of the area she grew up in, Longleaf acreage, and interviews with forestry professionals. She cites newspapers and other books on nature and she devotes an entire chapter to the heritage of the southern Celtic people, or Crackers. It’s one thing to simply write down a lot of personal anecdotes and call it memoir. It’s another to put in the hard work necessary to produce a quality piece of literature. This, I think, she has done. Probably, however, the one thing I liked most about this book – every couple essays (or sections…chapters maybe) include some story that reminded me of my own past. It’s always interesting to realize just how similar we are to people who don’t come from anywhere near where you do. The trees might be different, but the stories are often the same.

Beginning: Place 2

It’s late afternoon at the game preserve. There are several groups of people here this time, mostly families with children throwing bread to the ducks. The wildlife is excited; the honking and quacking drowns out the sound of traffic in the distance. The sky is a cotton candy blue and this time I’ve brought you with me.

I’m sitting on a wooden bench chained to what looks like an oak tree (I’ll try to verify that with my field guide when I’m finished) and I’m watching you throw a piece of bread to the ducks. Your mom and I forgot to bring any with us so when the couple next to you offered a slice, you tried to eat it. Luckily, mom was paying attention. She’s showing you how to tear off a piece and toss it to the hungry birds. The first shot you take leaves your hand early like an errantly gripped curve ball and the small wad of bread lands on top of your head, bounces to the sidewalk. I laugh out loud and people look at me like I’m some kind of creepy thirty year old guy on a bench in a park, out of place…which I suppose I am.

There are a few large black ants making their way up the bench. I take the quasi- Oates approach, but instead of squashing them I flick them far enough away that they can’t crawl up my pant legs. While I’m flicking away, the mallards, there might be fifty or so, start honking like a city traffic jam and about a dozen take off from the bank that slopes upward toward the forest, and dive swiftly into the pond. It’s a concert of a thing, there’s communication going on and I wonder if anyone else is listening. I stop writing to take a look around and I realize there is. Just up the grassy hillside at the edge of the treeline is a bobbing white object, a tail. In a few short moments I can see at least two brown bodies, enough to prompt further investigation. I hop off the bench, leave the ants to their tiny blitzkrieg and begin to climb the hill. About half way to the trees I can make out four deer. One is a buck, looks to be a four point as far as I can tell. The rest are doe. I try to take a few pictures with my cell phone but the distance is too great and it’s difficult to see them. Next time I’ll bring a camera. I slowly reach the treeline and I can tell they know I am here. The buck looks at me wearily, sizing me up, trying to decide if I am a threat. They move cautiously as I do. I am trying not to scare them. They are trying not to be killed.

I want to bring you with me, show you the deer, but you’re off exploring other parts of the preserve so I watch them with as much awe as I can muster, pretending that I am like you, a child again, pretending that they are new, that I haven’t driven into one on a foggy night near a farm in Venango County crushing it’s pelvis and the passenger side fender of my friend’s Honda Prelude. I am pretending that I felt more remorse for the animal than the car. I am pretending that they are innocent and that I did not derive any pleasure from pulling the trigger of my 30-30 Winchester rifle, firing a bullet through its forehead to stop the wailing – its legs already crippled. I am pretending that I didn’t feel like a man when I began sawing its stomach free with an 8 inch blade and that I didn't feel strong when I dragged it several miles through the woods leaving a trail of burgundy and fur behind. I am pretending that there is more to the relationship I have created with them, that there is something deep within the events that have shaped it. I am pretending to understand Joyce Carol Oates and Henry David Thoreau. I am pretending that understanding this matters, and I am beginning to believe that it does.

"Desert Solitaire": Response 3

My wife grew up in Price, Utah, near the center of the state. When I began reading Edward Abbey’s book I asked her what she knew of Arches National Park and if she’d ever been there. She hadn’t visited, but not for lack of want. Her family moved several times and the opportunity simply never presented itself. She did mention, however, that Lake Powell was nearby and that to her knowledge during spring break a great mass of college students would take to the lake for several days of stress-ridding debauchery – meaning they do all the things they normally do in dormitories and frat houses, but they do it on water and rocks instead. “Let’s all have fun together” is the theme. And Edward Abbey might just be rolling over in his grave.

Abbey’s voice is well defined. His opinions on the sacredness of nature are strict and he defends them with hard and fast descriptions and an almost breathtaking imagery. He identifies, with a definitive accuracy, the plant and animal life in the areas he lives and patrols. He is a man of conviction and it shows in this prose.

Abbey, while exploring the idea of Industrial Tourism, challenges the typical notion of progress. Woven into a rich description of scenery and natural life is a sarcasm pointed at the institutions responsible for the development of what he terms “Arches Natural Money-mint.” He even goes so far as to call the engineers responsible for surveying the land for the pavement of an access road, madmen. At no point does he leave his readers without a thick dose of cynicism. “Progress has come at last to the Arches, after a million years of neglect. Industrial Tourism has arrived.” Good one, Mr. Abbey, good one.

Even the human population isn’t exempt from Abbey’s abrasive opinions. “I’d rather kill a man than a snake,” he says when faced with a rattler staring at his feet one morning. And as he heads off down the Colorado River on a rubber-rafting excursion, he is more than happy to “not see another of the tool-making breed for a long time.” Despite humorous quips like these, he makes a good argument for leaving the parks unchanged (or not unnaturally developed) so that people can enjoy them on a purely fundamentalist scale. “Park your car, (insert long list of vehicular machinery) get on your horse, mule, bicycle or feet, and come on in. Enjoy yourselves,” he says. “This here park is for people.” Personally, I respect his ideals, but I don’t know that I can agree with him completely.

Having said that, I do not intend to attack Abbey. On the contrary, I admire his writing style and his sense of conviction. He is a man of principle and a writer of the highest magnitude. However, I also do not intend to defend his position either. The deep sense of closeness that he discovered during his time in Utah (in one moment he calls it “the old magic destroyed”) is not so different than experiences I’ve had in the forests of Pennsylvania. At the same time, however, I was, years ago, one of those wild college kids doing shots of Jagermeister upside down on a pontoon boat. But nature changes more than rocks and trees. Indeed, it changes you and me. And now, while you won’t find me shooting cigarette butts into the lake or tossing beer cans out the window of my “upholstered mechanized wheelchair”, I will, one day, drive my car down the smoothly paved road so my daughter can experience that feeling of closeness with nature, that magic, and so my wife can finally enjoy a century’s old wonder of her home.

"A Weed by Any Other Name": Response 2

I enjoy spending time outdoors. Like I’ve said before I grew up that way. Evan as a young kid, I spent a lot of time hiking the woods behind a family friends’ farmhouse in Cranesville, Pa, southwest of Erie. A creek lies about a half mile or so from the house and my friend Bob and I would walk it for hours. Even today my wife and I have an attic full of camping equipment that we use occasionally, though less often than we’d like. Both of us work full time, take classes and we have a two year old daughter (she keeps us busier than the other two things combined). Still, just a few weeks ago we pulled out the tent, sleeping bags, lantern, camper pie irons and a trunk full of outdoor gear and headed up to Pymatuning for a long weekend. My wife and I agree that it’s important for us to expose our daughter to the outdoors. It’s good for the soul.

Now having said all this, I have never known, and really still don’t know a thing about weeds. Well, I do know this: poison ivy is incredibly itchy. In fact, as I write this I am rubbing away at a rash on the bottom of my right arm. Apparently we have a patch of it somewhere in our lawn and I’ve yet to identify exactly where, despite having a pretty good idea what it looks like. My wife had a severe case of it a couple years ago, right after she had the baby. It was so bad that she had to stop breast feeding. The point is that our lawn exists really just to be cut. The whole thing is primarily just a chore for us. We’ve tried planting flowers but neither of us are green thumbs (or forefingers, pinkies, toes…). In fact, knowing that there’s poison ivy out there just deters us even more from doing anything creative in our yard. And reading Nancy Gift’s book, while very interesting (I’ll get into what I like about it in a second) is almost a manifesto of my enemies. I know she’s not a poison ivy advocate; she even used an herbicide to rid her own yard of it. But personally, I think anything that forces me to work outside when I’d rather be enjoying it is not my friend. If I apply the definition of weeds mentioned in her book (“a plant out of place”) to my lawn, then the whole thing is just one big weed. And I have to admit, I’m probably a lot like many of the students she describes – weeds, to me, are boring.

That said, I rather enjoyed “A Weed by Any Other Name.” First of all, she writes in an accessible manner; that is to say she doesn’t over-burden her readers with a book full of scientific terms. She includes the scientific names of plants for the curious, but she never over-does it. She also writes with a conversational tone that is enjoyable to read. It’s as though she’s writing a book for her family and friends and not for an audience of botanists. More than anything, it’s a subject that I’ve never actually gotten in to and she presents it in a manner that is relatable. She includes a good amount of personal and family-oriented anecdotes, as though she’s writing purposefully from the part of her that is mother, daughter (and daughter-in-law), wife and neighbor. It’s the kind of book that makes you want to call her Nancy instead of Dr. or Ms. Gift.

Another thing I enjoyed about the book is the linear narrative. In fact, it simply follows the seasons, the number one attribute mentioned in our handout “Characteristics of the Literary Nature Journal/Memoir.” And there are a couple of quotes that I found particularly interesting: the idea that weeds are “a pioneer species” or “canaries of our mines.” I also found myself agreeing with her stance on dandy lions. I happen to rather like them, always have. They’re like miniature sunflowers. I could never quite figure out why people want to get rid of them so bad. I guess, according to Gift, their going to seed so fast makes them a nuisance to most avid lawn-keepers. Why not cut them after that, I say.

In a final note, I found one particular phrase quite interesting: she defends hawkweed, and even grows it tall in her own yard. She declares, “Hawkweed won’t take over the world,” which inspired me to begin a new poem, one that envisions, of course, hawkweed taking over the world. I’m not sure exactly where it will go, but I have the feeling that hawkweed would be smart to ally itself with poison ivy and maybe even dandy lions– some kind of axis of evil, you know, in a green/eco-friendly sort of way.

The Preserve: Place 1

It’s dusk. Everything looks sad. The trees, mostly maples and oaks I think, are frowning, weighted down by the clouds’ tears; or just rain, which I suppose is sad enough without me calling it names. The sky is dirty, gray and smoky like the walls of our house just a few weeks ago before painting. They were white, or maybe egg shell, but a decade of forced heat blowing through our duct work – that giant pipe smoking fat man lounging in our basement – dusted those walls a layer of soot that we didn’t really see the extent of until we white washed the ceilings. Sometimes you don’t notice how ugly something is until something truly beautiful comes along, or vice versa. Take, for instance, the black duck standing about ten feet from me at this very moment. He’s hollering at the couple throwing bread to the good looking ducks, apparently the more popular ducks, on the other side of the pond. This is what’s happening right now, shortly before the earth covers up, rolls over to sleep.

Suppose I’d better tell you where I am. Sesqui Drive (I like that, sounds Native American; I’ll look it up) is about a mile down Library Road in South Park, a wooded community in the South Hills of Pittsburgh. There’s a small wildlife preserve just off the side of the road. It’s only a few miles south of our house, which incidentally has freshly painted walls, olive green they are now, not unlike the walls of this game preserve, the forest surrounding me. I will let you know what plants and animals are here on a future visit. I bought a field guide and promptly left it at home.

Your mom and I brought you here a couple times. Once, we saw deer just up the tree line, no doubt scouting for food or maybe just looking for a quiet spot to reflect on the day.

The preserve itself is really just a small pond surrounded by a bed of rocks that slope upward to a metal railing and a sidewalk. At the far end of the pond, opposite the parking lot is a wooden bridge. I am standing on it now. It is my favorite attraction, if you could call it that, in the area. I like it even more than the peacock, which I will tell you about later. The bridge is only ten yards long or so and made of wood. It almost looks like it grew from the earth, slowly making its way, year after year, from one bank to the next. And now it’s mature enough for us to walk across its back. There is something special about wooden bridges; maybe it’s the idea of nature and man working together for aesthetics and utility. Maybe it’s because my great grandfather made a hobby out of photographing wooden covered bridges. Maybe they remind me of building a clubhouse with my dad. I’m not sure, but it’s nice and I think I’ll come back, even though today is sad. It’s getting dark; the garbage is overflowing with too many empty bread bags, Starbucks cups and Wendy’s wrappers. Even the two sunflowers are hanging their heads and the clouds are beginning to cry again.

But, as I walk toward my truck, I hear the sound of mallards in the sky coming near. In just a few short seconds they fly directly overhead in the familiar V shape. The ducks on the pond seem to say hello as the formation swiftly passes, and for a moment I forget how sad it feels. Instead I think of how beautiful it will be when the sun crawls back over the horizon. Next time I’ll come a little earlier in the day. And I’ll be sure to bring you with me.

The Woods, or Something Like It: Response 1

Apparently, if we subscribe to the Pattiann Rogers definition of nature, then nothing is off limits in a blog entry that details my current feelings about the natural world and, as an extension, the environment. Penthouse magazine? Calculus? NBA basketball? An ice pick through the chest? Ok, maybe Penthouse magazine, but seriously, Ms. Rogers? I have no doubt she spent considerable time and effort contemplating just how many random things could be packed in the four or five odd pages it took to essentially make the point that nature is everything…or everything is nature. Hmm, I guess I’m still not quite sure which is the point. Regardless, I’m pretty sure that our class has settled on the idea that the natural world, the environment, or just plain nature has to do with the outdoors, the forest, the trees, plants, animals, camping, fishing, and so on and so on…pretty much the woods, or something like it.

Ms. Rogers theory aside (I’m sure, by the way, she is a terrific poet and I’m merely poking fun at her essay because it’s a rant and rants invite that sort of thing), there are really two major topics that I would like to explore during this class. One is (and I realize I’m risking the sentimentality taboo here) my daughter and her relationship with nature. Nothing, as far as I can tell, is more natural than introducing a new life to the world, though rearing that life might come rather unnatural to many, myself included. Still, I’ve found that I don’t write nearly enough about her (she’s two years old by the way, and absolutely the most adorable creature in the world…I’ll post pics, you’ll agree…it’s ok, it doesn’t mean you don’t love your own children, it’s just a fact) and the idea of writing about her interaction with the environment could lead to some interesting findings.

The other thing, which poses a bit of a challenge, is encorporating the writing that I do as part of the class into my thesis, which happens to revolve around labor, the working class and growing up with the old blue collar. I’m not quite sure how that’s going to play itself out. I hope, as I often do with most of my writing, that I’ll figure it out as I go.

Personally, I grew up in a rural community. My family built a hunting cabin in the Allegheny National Forrest. I went hunting for the first time at twelve with my dad and uncles. My mom is a huge fisherperson, she loves it, which I think is really cool. How many moms out there enjoy handling slippery fish? In high school my friends and I would drop a couple canoes into the Allegheny River up near Warren, row and float for several days, stopping to camp on the banks or on small islands, down stream to the marina at Oil City. I’ve spent a lot of time outdoors and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I hope my daughter can experience moments like those. But that’s to come. Right now it’s late and I have a Penthouse to read…for the articles, naturally.