A Part of Nature
what part do we play?
How we are like a tree,
a bird,
a flower,
the rain, sun, wind and fire?
How we are like mud and dust?
Trust/adjust/just/sawdust
We think we are so special but we live and we die
”Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” (Genesis 3:19)
I don’t remember what inspired me to write this poem. I’m pretty sure it was written at my kitchen table, and I do know the date, April 3, 2024. On that day I started a new Substack post and gave it the above title. It languished in my drafts folder (along with 33 others!) until last week when I opened it, intending to write more. But, unsure of what I wanted to say, the words weren’t coming that day. Another week went by, and then, serendipity struck this morning.
I discovered a book, Is a River Alive?. It sounded exactly like what I was referring to in my poem. Lisa Olivera recommended it in her Substack post. When someone recommends a book, I don’t pass it by, especially when the recommendation says, “Weeping while reading this stunning book.” She intrigued me with the word weeping, but I was hooked by stunning.
I hopped over to Amazon to read the reviews. One had me at the word ethereal - “the vivid quality of the prose feels ethereal, like transcending, like the words themselves flow like a river.” So I gave it a listen on Audible. I prefer listening over reading. It makes long car rides and multi-tasking fun. The author narrates his book in his calm, British accent. I instantly relaxed into listening and purchased the book.
Much like my questioning poem, the author, Robert Macfarlane, wrote three questions in a notebook in 2020: “Can a forest think?”, “Does a mountain remember?”, and his eventual title “Is a river alive?” He says it’s “the [book] I’ve been learning how to write all this time.”
It may not be for everybody (what book is?), but it is giving me much to think about and understand about this planet, its systems that keep us alive, and our interdependency. We know we will die. Does our planet operate under the same conditions? What are the increasing instances of natural disasters trying to tell us? Does a 7000-year-old glacier sliding down the mountain, erasing an 800-year-old village, foretell something? What about Pompei (79 AD)? Will we forget Katrina, North Carolina floods, California wildfires, and just chalk them up to “just another natural disaster”? We have taken this earth for granted, assuming it will always be here for us, not with us, here to serve us, while we forget to serve it in return.
We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962
I know the Colorado River and the Rio Grande are drying up due to drought, as are the Amazon, Ganges, Mekong, and the Darling, located in Australia. That speaks volumes. So, if a river is alive, what can it tell us before it dies? I don’t know yet; I’m barely into the book, but have already learned and become aware of so much. If you’re curious, you may want to try your local library. I just read that a woman did a little experiment. She ordered a specific art book from her local library, and they bought it!
If a book serendipitously pops into your life, there is a reason for it. I give attention to everything the Universe offers me. But that’s a story for another time.
Quotes of the Week
Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.
John Lubbock
The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us,
thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies,
making them glide and sing.
John Muir
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving through you, a joy.
Rumi
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
Mary Oliver
Your poem is thoughtful, lyrical, deep. Thanks, Lesley.
And I really like knowing that it was composed at your kitchen table.
I have just put that book on hold as it sounds intriguing and I do love a recommendation from someone whose taste I trust :)
There is so much that we don't know or are oblivious about. I read recently that it's been proven that tree roots reach out and "hold hands" underground - especially in a forest setting. Not all scientists will agree that this is anything more than a symbiotic relationship but I prefer to believe that the giant walnut trees in my back garden are locking their craggy "Ent" fingers together in ancient friendship. Why not?
There is a book you might want to consider by Elif Shafak "There Are Rivers in the Sky". Its magical. It's about water, history, and transformation. She writes of substack too. Highly recomment.