Oh, mother earth, your comfort is great, your arms never withhold.
It has saved my life to know this…”
from ‘Loneliness’
There is a comfort to be found in nature, perhaps consolation from the feelings of loneliness that everyone experiences once in a while. I wrote this poem about the “connectedness” we can sometimes feel with nature – a similar feeling to that described by Mary Oliver.
Mary Oliver is a poet who is both realistic and responsive to the ways of nature:
The slippery green frog
that went to his death
in the heron’s beak
was my small brother
From ‘After Reading Lucretius I Go To The Pond’
The predated animal is her “brother” – but so is the predator…
…the heron …
in the shining pool
is my tall thin brother
So when I recently watched a red kite (Brother Red Kite!) being mobbed by a rook (Brother Rook) – photograph below – her poem helped me to understand that the natural world can be both violent and fascinating.
After all, the plants “eat” the sunshine and the rain; animals eat the plants; and we humans eat both animals and plants.
We are all part of the same universe, we share so much – and I like Mary Oliver’s way of thinking about nature, which also reminded me of St. Francis of Assisi’s famous “Canticle of the Sun” which celebrate “Brother Sun … Sister Moon … Sister Water … Brother Fire … Sister Earth”:
We praise you, Lord, for all your creatures, especially for Brother Sun, who is the day through whom you give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour, of you Most High, he bears your likeness.
We praise you, Lord, for Sister Moon and the stars, in the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair. We praise you, Lord, for Brothers Wind and Air, fair and stormy, all weather’s moods, by which you cherish all that you have made.
We praise you, Lord, for Sister Water, so useful, humble, precious and pure.
We praise you, Lord, for Brother Fire, through whom you light the night. He is beautiful, playful, robust, and strong.
We praise you, Lord, for Sister Earth, who sustains us with her fruits, coloured flowers, and herbs.
Wroxeter Roman City, just outside Shrewsbury, Shropshire, U.K., is a peaceful and beautiful place. During the winter months, the surrounding fields are home to fieldfares and redwings, seasonal visitors from Scandinavia.
~
Watching the fieldfares
And the redwings
~
At Wroxeter
From a distance
~
Feel the beauty
And the joy
~
And the love
For all existence.
~
Fieldfare image fomr Pixabay, and redwing image by Ingi Finnsson also from Pixabay
Birds teach us about freedom, so we should make room in our hearts for them!
This is a message I have taken away from Mary Oliver’s amazing poem with the mundane title ‘Storage’. She talks about clutter she kept in storage as she moved from one place to another, and how all these things eventually meant so little to her that they could all be burned in a “beautiful fire”!
I love the conclusion of this poem:
“More room in your heart for love,
for the trees! For the birds who own
nothing – the reason they can fly.“
from ‘Storage’
On the River Severn, there is so much wonderful wild bird life – the swans…
the goosanders…
the swifts…
They fly, and they own nothing.
We seem to want own more and more as human beings.
But do any of our possessions help our souls to love, or to fly?
Mary Oliver’s poetry celebrates the wonders of nature, and I love this poem by hers, called “Whistling Swans”. Here are some of its wonderful lines:
“Even when the swans are flying north and making
such a ruckus of noise, God is surely listening and understanding.
Rumi said, There is no proof of the soul.
But isn’t the return of the spring and how it
springs up in our hearts a pretty good hint?”
from “Whistling Swans” by Mary Oliver
I recently witnessed – not whistling swans – but geese, making “such a ruckus of noise” at Polemere nature reserve, just off the Pontesbury Road. There was also a huge flock of lapwing, who displayed themselves both in the air and on the ground.
Spring is definitely returning, and springing up in hearts in Shropshire, as snowdrops and even daffodils are starting to appear.
I hope that either nature, or Mary Oliver’s lines, will make something spring up in your heart by the time you have finished reading this post.
Greylag geese in flight, Polemere nature reserve, Shropshire, February 2022
Celtic spring (“Imbolc”) began this week, on February 1st, and light is slowly beginning to fight back against the predominance of darkness.
I recently photographed this beautiful sunrise at Wroxeter Roman city, and some words by the poet Mary Oliver – “darkness opening into morning is enough” – inspired this short poem:
Lif4Gd 