Tag Archives: Nature

A Little Bit Chipped Off in Brilliance

By Robin Bates | Published: July 26, 2017

D. H. Lawrence’s poem “Hummingbird” works as a kind of trance, out of which we must be jolted lest we be swallowed up.

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A Dear Friend Is Made One with Nature

By Robin Bates | Published: April 1, 2017

My dear, dear friend Kate Chandler died yesterday. I am turning to Percy Shelley’s, a poem she loved, as I mourn her.

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Wander Slowly through the Forest

By Robin Bates | Published: August 13, 2016

In this nature poem Mary Oliver tells us to open ourselves to “God or the gods,” to listen for “the words that will never leave God’s mouth,” to linger in the wind and the rain and to wander slowly through forests,

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Novels with Waterfalls and Secret Caves

By Robin Bates | Published: August 10, 2016

When I was growing up, the adventure books that I read influenced how I regarded and interacted with nature.

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Beauty Breaks Like a Flash from Heaven

By Robin Bates | Published: April 9, 2016

William Cowper invokes St. Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus to capture his sense of God in nature.

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Wild Turkey Sighting in Tennessee

By Robin Bates | Published: December 9, 2015

After unexpectedly encountering a flock of wild turkeys, I had to share these three wild turkey poems.

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Hearing the Sound of Roses Singing

By Robin Bates | Published: October 24, 2015

For Mary Oliver, going into the woods and paying attention to nature is a form of prayer.

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The Pleasure of a Pathless Wood

By Robin Bates | Published: August 26, 2015

For Americans, wilderness is a more unkempt affair than it for Europeans.

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Out of the Blackness Every Morning

By Robin Bates | Published: April 5, 2015

Many of Mary Oliver’s poems, including “The Sun,” function well as Easter poems.

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