In Southern Maryland our eternal summer appears finally to be fading and the fall, my favorite season, is a’cumin in. To celebrate it, I am posting one of my favorite seasonal poems, John Keats’ “To Autumn” (1817). The poem takes on added significance as the news continues to get worse for my friend Alan. Despite […]
Tag Archives: Nature
A Harvest Love Poem to God
Spiritual Sunday Here is a harvest poem that moves quickly from an actual harvest (in the first line) to a heavenly one. The clouds are like sacks of grain, their meal drifting across the skies, and we can gaze upward and glean them with our eyes. As Gerald Manley Hopkins sees it, God reveals himself […]
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Beatrix Potter: How to Be a Naturalist
In a departure from custom, today’s post focuses on journal writing. Beatrix Potter may best be known as the author and illustrator of Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and other classics, but she was also a world-class naturalist who kept a fascinating journal. My colleague Kate Chandler, who teaches many of our college’s “ecoliterature” […]
A Whale Poem to Lift the Spirits
A Scott Bates whale poem to lift your spirits.
Moments of Perfect Being
Today we head home after having spent a delicious week in our Maine cottage with our sons Darien and Toby, along with our daughter-in-law Betsy and Toby’s girlfriend Candice. We immersed ourselves in memory and tradition while we were here. Portraits of my great-great grandparents John and Remember Berry Swett, are on the wall, as […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Cloud Lake Castle, Maine, Short Story, Vladimir Nabokov Comments closed
When Nature Wreaks Its Revenge
Randy Kennedy has written a superb article in the New York Times that points out parallels between the Gulf oil spill and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Kennedy says that, in the 19th century, New England whalers had to venture further and further afield to find oil-producing whales (they had depleted the local stock). Melville’s apocalyptic vision is eerily prescient.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Albee (Edward), Edward Albee, Goat or Who Is Sylvia?, Gulf oil spill, Mark Twain, Moby Dick, Oil Spill Comments closed
Nature or Poetry? Choose Both
“The world is filled with the grandeur of God.” “The sounding cataract haunted me like a passion.” In my last two posts, I reported how poetry sprang to mind as I walked through some of California’s natural wonders, specifically Big Basin Redwoods State Park and Yosemite National Park. Today I meditate on the relationship of […]
The Cataract Haunted Me Like a Passion
Ansel Adams, Yosemite Falls Julia, Toby (our youngest son) and I visited Yosemite National Park for the first time last week, and I am still vibrating from the stunning rock faces and gorgeous waterfalls. It was remarkable to see what seemed, at a distance, to be thin, almost delicate, streams of water pouring from great […]
The Grandeur of God
Spiritual Sunday Julia and I have been in Davis, California seeing our son this past week (he is a graduate student in English at the university there) and took the occasion to visit Big Basin Redwoods State Park. As I walked through the silence of the forest and gazed up in awe at the mammoth […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "God's Grandeur", Gerard Manley Hopkins, Gulf spill Comments closed
