Poetics of the Middle Landscape:
How Poetry Can Reconstruct Perceptions of the Urban
Environment
Stephanie Elliott
Environmental Studies Department
Honors Thesis
Lewis and Clark College
Portland, Oregon
May 2008
Contents
Introduction
Finding the Middle Landscape: The Intersection of Poetry and Utility
1
Poetics of the Middle Landscape
How to Compose Lines on the Willamette
29
What the Tattoo Artist Said
31
Inside
33
Introduction to the Pastoral
34
The Winter Garden
35
Song of the Sheep Dog
37
The Wildlife Removal Specialist
39
Tinker Creek
41
Design
42
Anecdote of the Lilies
43
The Backstage Bar
44
Last Visit
46
1
Finding the Middle Landscape:
The Intersection of Poetry and Utility
In his poem, “In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” W.H. Auden succinctly stated one of
poetry’s largest limitations when he wrote, “poetry makes nothing happen.” While
reading the newspaper I become acutely aware of and depressed about the truth of this
statement: poetry cannot restore salmon populations to the Northwest; it cannot set policy
to reduce tailpipe emissions; and it cannot engineer new sources of clean power. The list
goes on. Though poetry is an awkward tool for a litany of environmental and social
problems, it is far from useless. Art isn’t typically celebrated for its utility, but for those
of us concerned about the relationship between environmental solutions and poetry, such
as myself, we cannot help but ask, What is it that poetry can do? One thing that poetry is
directly capable of is shaping perspectives, which in turn can contribute to addressing
environmental issues such as those listed above. A specific example of the poetic
capacity for change can be seen in the large impact it had during the 19th century in
constructing our perceptions of wilderness. Prior to that period, wilderness was seen as a
sinner’s wasteland, whereas after, it was and still is, often perceived as a divine respite
(Cronon 71). This shift, which can be partially, though not exclusively, attributed to
Romantic poets, such as William Wordsworth, played a role in inspiring the first
wilderness preservation in the late 19th century. Because many other factors, such as the
industrial revolution, also influenced our perceptions about wilderness, we might say that
the Romantic movement not only constructed, but also documented the changing views
2
of the era. Though the array of pressures that led to the shift in perception is complex and
interwoven, for the sake of this essay, I will focus specifically on one strand of the web:
how the Romantics contributed to our changing perceptions of wilderness. This shift in
cultural perceptions of wilderness still influences modern attitudes about nature as well as
provides the basis for much of contemporary environmentalism. Before going any
further, I should define my use of the term, nature. Though I reference wilderness
extensively as a location, nature could be defined as what is within that landscape, what
is of the earth, and what is typically considered to be without human influence or
association. Though I later contest the notions that what is natural is nonhuman and that
what is natural has to reside in the wilderness, these ideas are what the term commonly
suggests.
Though the Romantics demonstrated that poetry is an effective genre for
generating environmental change, our reverence for wilderness has led to a problematic
relationship between humans and nature. The divinity and value the Romantic authors
infused into the natural landscape generated a dualism between civilization and
wilderness. While wilderness became a holy landscape, the city came to be seen as an
invasive and destructive location. For these reasons we often neglect the environmental
health of the urban setting and fail to appreciate the natural elements that comprise the
city. Though this essay is concerned with Romantic perceptions of wilderness as an
example of what poetry is capable of, it also explores the consequences associated with
those perceptions and introduces how the following collection of poetry responds to those
problems. Just as the Romantic authors used poetry to make the wilderness a desirable
location, this collection of poetry attempts to do the same for the city. More specifically,
3
the collection explores how poetry can reconstruct our perceptions of the urban
environment as a natural space. By attempting to see the city as natural, these poems
attempt to transpose some of our value for wilderness onto the urban environment. In
doing so, they suggest a reorganization of our current values to bring human-constructed
landscapes into parity with wilderness by drawing attention to nature in the city, as well
as the idea that the city itself is natural. Though the poetry is the primary work of this
project, this essay will serve as an introduction to further explain why poetry is an apt
genre, why our perceptions of urban space need to be reconstructed to begin with, and
how the collection responds to the civilization/wilderness dualism.
In order to elaborate on why poetry is the appropriate genre, I will expand upon
the aforementioned example of what it has been capable of in the past; that is, how poetry
influenced our perception that wilderness is worthy of preservation, specifically through
the use of the sublime. Because the poetry in this collection explores the successes and
limitations of this specific example, I will then explain problems with the Romantic
construction of our wilderness views: they perpetuate the civilization/nature dualism,
which leads to social injustice, the neglect of urban spaces, and lack of fulfillment for
urban residents and wilderness lovers. I will then discuss how the poetry in this collection
responds to this problem by trying to view the city as a natural, and therefore valuable,
environment. The poems begin to do this by drawing attention to, and disassembling
boundaries, as well as working with themes and techniques from poetic tradition and
contemporary authors.
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The Poetic Capacity for Change
The following section reveals what poetry is capable of: how in the 1800’s it
contributed to a transformation in perspectives about wilderness, which in turn, altered
the reality of our landscape. To demonstrate the extent to which poetry has impacted our
perceptions of wilderness, we need to understand that our perceptions are malleable, that
they have changed over time. Though there is no doubt that wilderness exists as a
location, that there are places with vast forests and icy mountain lakes, our current
perceptions of those places are drastically different from those held 250 years ago
(Cronon 70). While today we see wilderness as worthy of preservation, traditionally the
connotations of wilderness were far less desirable. Our current views of wilderness are
perhaps best summarized by how it has been carefully protected by the environmental
movement. The movement’s efforts to preserve national parks and endangered species,
and to keep loggers and ranchers off the land, show their commitment to speaking up for
the natural in the face of human encroachment. For many, preserving wilderness deserves
this level of protection because of its intrinsic value, as it is a place of meditation, selfreflection, and nearness to the divine. It is also appreciated for recreational opportunities,
as a source of biodiversity (purely intrinsically, or as a source of potential
pharmaceuticals), and for its utilitarian role in providing crucial ecosystem functions such
as clean water.
Though today our appreciation for wilderness is embedded in the landscape, prior
to the 19th century, our perceptions of wilderness were far less idyllic. William Cronon,
author of Uncommon Ground, has written extensively about our changing perceptions of
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wilderness, and notes that in the past, wilderness was often referred to as “deserted,”
“savage,” “desolate” or “barren”(70).1 In the Bible, the wilderness was a place where one
lost track of their moral disposition, where Moses came close to abandoning God, where
Christ was subjected to the Devil’s temptation, and where Adam and Eve were driven
after being expelled from the garden. Though these examples may seem dated, they
represent a general sentiment about wilderness that persisted for hundreds of years. Prior
to the industrial revolution, wilderness was also a place of danger: humans were less
technologically insulated from the wild, and therefore felt more threatened by it. Though
these perspectives fall in sharp contrast to our current views of wilderness, wilderness
itself didn’t change from dreadful to mystical— humans have been encountering similar
forests and mountain lakes for thousands of years.
Rather, within a century, the industrial revolution and the texts of the Romantic
authors took part in a profound change that flipped the notion of wilderness from a
desolate and savage desert to a natural cathedral. The first legislation was passed to
preserve national parks such as Niagara Falls, Yosemite, and Yellowstone, and they
began attracting visitors from across the country. In this short time frame, wilderness
became a destination as opposed to a threat. Some of the most influential voices behind
this shift came from authors like William Wordsworth, John Muir, and Henry David
Thoreau, who were documenting their own wilderness experiences with awe and
reverence. It was their work, their poetry and prose, that largely influenced the swing in
perception that sculpted the evil into the enlightening. Because their writing wasn’t
1
Not only am I indebted to Cronon for much of the background material in the first
section of the paper, but also for his ideas regarding the problems with an idyllic
wilderness in the second section. Though I’ve made my own use of his material, his
influence should be recognized throughout this work.
6
produced at the same time (Wordsworth lived from 1770-1850, Thoreau from 1817-1862,
and Muir from 1838-1914) there was ample time for these authors to not only influence,
but be influenced by changes in society and technology; that is, they both generated and
participated in the general reorientation of perspective. The railroad, for example, was
another factor that sparked the ultimate preservation of national parks and the pervasive
transition in attitude: while the growth of the railroad encroached upon the landscape and
further spoiled what was considered “pristine,” it was also the very technology that
allowed the masses to access the national parks to begin with. While this is only one
other contribution to the shift, the parks became so idealized throughout the populous in
part due to the incredible accessibility the railroad afforded. Returning to the impact of
literature, to understand the extent to which the Romantic tradition did effect perceptions
of wilderness, we can observe their poetic methods. At the heart of the reversal was a
thematic shift in their texts; they viewed wilderness filtered through a lens that imbued it
with the sacred elements of the sublime.
Sublime landscapes are the houses of the divine; they are landscapes that evoke
both tremendous awe as well as terror. For Wordsworth and Thoreau, they were the
landscapes that one was most daunted by, that one might want to observe from a distance,
such as a powerful mountain peak, or a raging storm. Edmund Burke, one of the foremost
writers on the sublime, describes that “vastness” is a crucial element of the sublime, that
natural scenes with “length, height, or depth” are most capable of eliciting wonder and
fear (334). In The Prelude, Wordsworth recounts a sublime experience in response to the
height of a mountain peak while rowing on a lake:
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…from behind that craggy steep till then
The horizon’s bound, a huge peak, black and huge,
As if with voluntary power instinct
Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,
And growing still in stature that grim shape
Towered up between me and the stars, and still,
For so it seemed, with purpose of its own
And measured motion like a living thing,
Strode after me. With trembling oars, I turned... (1. 378-385)
The trembling oars not only suggest the terror associated with the sublime, but the
looming quality of the peak also suggests that wilderness is alive, is infused with a
spiritual essence. Though this example most strikingly generates fear, the sublime is also
distinctive for its beauty. Burke describes how, with distance, this fear can translate into
pleasure: “When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight,
and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications they may
be, and they are, delightful” (334). With enough insulation for safety, an intimidating
scene has the potential to be particularly moving. The Romantics began to perceive
wilderness with this newfound appreciation based on the fact that wilderness previously
had spiritual undertones. Wilderness was always seen as a place of moral and spiritual
testing, and though it was a place where one might meet the devil, it was also a place
where one could conceivably encounter God. In their spiritual seeking, Romantic authors
were the first to look to those dramatic landscapes that humbled the fragility of human
existence, and reminded them of their own insignificance and mortality. Over the course
of the century, the sublime was toned down to become a tamer and less frightening
version of the original, as can be seen in the writing of John Muir. In his writings about
the Yosemite Valley, he recorded, “No pain here, no dull empty hours, no fear of the
past, no fear of the future. These blessed mountains are so compactly filled with God’s
8
beauty, no petty personal hope or experience has room to be” (Cronon 75). This gentler
version of the sublime led to our more common, contemporary notions of an idyllic,
spiritual wilderness. By generating the perception that wilderness is sacred, poetry and
literature had an astonishing impact on how we relate to the wild and how we care for it.
Though poetry didn’t act directly, by altering perception, it was effective as an idealistic
tool. I refer to idealism in the philosophical sense in that it is capable of changing internal
reality, the happenings of the human mind, in order to impact the external world. While a
materialistic response would focus on directly changing external reality and is the more
common method for social and environmental groups to create a change, it often
addresses the problem instead of the source. Though this specific example of what
poetry is capable of demonstrates that the genre has been a successful idealistic method
for altering attitudes, it is also riddled with drawbacks.
The Problem with Wilderness
Though the previous example demonstrates the utility of poetry, some of the
implications of this specific example have been detrimental. The problems associated
with the construction of an idyllic wilderness are in part, what the following collection of
poetry responds to. While the idealization of wilderness has been largely beneficial, the
problem with this view is that it cemented the wilderness/civilization dualism; the pristine
wilderness was set at odds with the technology that caused its destruction. The extreme
growth of the industrial revolution further encouraged the desire to hold on to the last
remaining wild lands as well as set people against the impinging technology; if people
9
saw wilderness as sacred and beautiful, then they were also apt to see the city as invasive
and destructive. By writing with regret about man’s technological intrusion into pristine
wilderness, the Romantics perpetuated this dualism (Marx 18). I use the term dualism
specifically because I not only want to suggest that the two landscapes appear to be
mutually exclusive, but I also want to suggest that relationally, there is a superior and
inferior realm (Plumwood 47). In Romantic poetry this assertion can be seen when
wilderness is portrayed as idyllic while technology is demonized. In The Machine in the
Garden, Leo Marx describes how Wordsworth expressed dismay over the construction of
a railroad through the Lake Country in his sonnet “On the Projected Kendal and
Windermere Roadway”: the sonnet begins “Is then no nook of English ground secure/
From rash assault?...” and ends with a request to “thou beautiful romance / Of nature” to
“protest against the wrong” (Wordsworth 282-283). For Wordsworth the railroad was
artificial, representing the “unfeeling utilitarian spirit” of society that threatened the
purity of a separate pristine landscape (Marx 18). While reverence for the wilderness
made people lament urban and technological growth, the growth also led to increased
reverence for the wilderness; it was a cyclical process where love of the wilderness led to
distaste for the city, and distaste for the city led to increased love of the wilderness. Marx
describes how industrial development caused people to further appreciate the shrinking
wilderness: it was the “ugliness, squalor and suffering associated with the new factory
system…[that] sharpened [people’s] taste, already strong for images of rural felicity”
(18). By designating wilderness as a space of renewal and the city as its threat, these
writers escalated the wilderness/civilization dualism so much that man and nature became
opposing categories. Though Cronon attributes this division to the frontier myth, which
10
asserts that the open lands of the West were sites where people could reconnect with the
passion and independence of American identity, the Romantics played a significant role
in constructing the dualism as well. Primarily due to the use of the sublime, the
Romantics infused a sense of value for wilderness over value for the urban, just as the
frontier myth did. Both therefore, perpetuated the separation and hierarchy between the
landscapes. We can see how this dualism persists today, when we consider that the most
natural thing we can think of is often what has the least human influence. Similarly, when
we consider the most unnatural things, we might think of what has been created by
humans and is the most divorced from its “natural” origin (a plastic cup for example,
might seem less natural than, say, a handmade clay pot, which would seem less natural
than a hunk of clay freshly dug from the ground). I bring attention to this sense of
separation not only because it is such a prevalent (as well as problematic) perspective
today, but also because it is what the poetry in this collection responds to. To be explicit,
the problem with this conception of nature as nonhuman is that it can lead to social
injustices, neglect of the city, and lack of satisfaction with the landscape we reside in.
To further explain the relevance of this separation, we can see how the idea that
humans and nature are inherently separate is a common essentialism in contemporary
thought. According to Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, authors of
BreakThrough, an essentialism claims that “things have an essential, unchanging nature
that can be represented objectively” and is independent of human perspective (219). My
purpose thus far has been to show the successes of poetry, but also to counter the
common essentialism that wilderness has a fixed essence, that it is inherently sacred and
inherently separate from human manipulation. Influences of the sublime have created
11
these perceptions and are not objective descriptions of the nature of wilderness. The
concept that wilderness is a human construction is difficult to grasp because it tears down
the dualism that holds civilization and wilderness separate. Beyond this dualism, humans
and nature are, in fact, very much intertwined. We can see just how interrelated humans
and wilderness are, how false this essentialism is, when we consider that the wilderness
itself (not just our perception of it) is a human construction. Since the 19th century, literal
wilderness areas (i.e., national parks) that appear to be pristine landscapes have been
designed and designated by humans.
The interrelationship between humans and nature is clear when we realize that
humans literally created wilderness to begin with. Though we often consider wilderness
to be pristine, untouched and uninfluenced by humans, the designation of wilderness
areas and the official boundaries that rope them off as national parks, are as legislated as
state and county lines. We designate their shape and size on a map, we name them, and
protect them from anyone who might appreciate their utilitarian value over their intrinsic
value. While their politically designated boundaries are clearly contrived, what exists
inside those boundaries isn’t any more “untouched.” Returning to the idea that wilderness
is often valued over humans, we can begin to see how this dualism might be problematic
as it is a source of injustice. To say that wilderness preservation protects the last vestiges
of untouched land negates the entire history of native people who previously resided in
the region. The creation of wilderness areas and the perpetuation of our fantasy that
wilderness is comprised of uninhabited land, depended on ridding the parks of native
people. While the writing of the Romantic authors helped to construct our perception that
wilderness is separate and spiritual, this example demonstrates that this sense of
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separation is indeed only perception, that humans are actually fundamental parts of
wilderness.
The Hierarchy of Value
Despite the inaccuracy of this dualism, the perception that we are separate and
that wilderness is more sacred than the city is a dominant belief that has repercussions for
how we live today. One of the problems with how the sublime has constructed wilderness
as a divine landscape is how it has made wilderness more valuable than the urban or
rural. Though valuing wilderness in itself is not a problem, making it superior to human
interests has led to an array of injustices for both urban and rural people. As introduced
above, kicking native people out of their homes to preserve the land as “pristine” was not
only a practice in national parks in the U.S., but has also been practiced around the world.
Environmentalists in the first-world, who place heavy weight on the importance of
wilderness preservation, have been known to practice a form of environmental
imperialism by removing native inhabitants from their land in places ranging from the
Amazon to the wildlife parks of Tanzania. Modern environmentalism, which often
strongly prioritizes wilderness preservation efforts, has left urban environments largely
neglected. While the air, water, and soil in designated wilderness areas are often carefully
protected, few environmental organizations dedicate attention to their urban counterparts,
which can be terribly polluted. As documented by the environmental justice movement,
the human species (and most often those coming from racial and low-income minorities)
are only one of the many that physically suffer from urban pollutants. The prioritization
13
of wilderness is not only troublesome on a social and physical level, but is also an issue
in terms of how we relate to our surroundings.
In addition to these more tangible problems, this dualism leads to an equally, if
not more important issue regarding our emotional and psychological relationship to
wilderness. If nature is what is sacred, and where we live is inherently unnatural because
it is a human landscape, we are always divorced from what some consider the most
divine. For those that deeply appreciate wilderness, this constructed separation yields an
ideology of unfulfilled longing. This longing allows us to remain detached from the
place we actually inhabit; as long as we “pretend to ourselves that our real home is in the
wilderness, to just that extent we give ourselves permission to evade responsibility for the
lives we actually lead” (Cronon 81). We allow ourselves to be dismissive of our own
reality and take for granted what is of value within it. If a landscape is only worthy of our
attention if it is wild or dramatic (sublime), then we are not recognizing the humble
natural encounters within the city. The problem here isn’t in wilderness at all; I am
certainly not arguing for the destruction of a literal wilderness as a location; rather, the
problem is in our perceptions and our heightened attribution of value to wilderness. Even
then, there would be no problem with idealizing wilderness if it didn’t come at the cost of
negating the value of the places we actually inhabit.
Poetic Response: Reconstructing the City
In response to the problems associated with wilderness, I have chosen to use
poetry as a means of reconstructing our perceptions of the urban environment as a natural
14
space. Because it was poetry that played such a powerful role in constructing our initial
perspectives of wilderness, and implicitly our perspectives of the city, I believe that
poetry is an appropriate genre for reconstructing these perceptions. Its effectiveness in the
past at actually convincing readers not only to consider a new outlook, but to actually
absorb the new perspective as their own, makes it an apt genre for this project.
My intent to reconstruct our perceptions of the urban environment as a natural
space is based in the need to dissolve the wilderness/civilization dualism and to remake
the city as a place we consider valuable. Though today we think of the environment as a
far away wilderness, as a separate other, etymologically, environment meant that which
surrounds. In response to the problems associated with the wilderness/civilization
dualism, the following collection of poems intends to reconstruct and document our
environment—that which surrounds us: the city—rather than the environment. I am doing
this in two ways: by drawing attention to nature within the city, as well as drawing
attention to the ways in which the city itself is natural. Though I previously defined
nature as what is found in the wilderness, I now propose that we reclaim the word, as
something more mobile—that is, something that can be found in the city as much as in
the wild. In this way we can find nature in the city. I also propose that if what is natural
is what is of the earth, then humans are natural as well. In this way, we can see the city
itself as natural, considering the city is the human habitat. The former of these ideas can
be attributed in part to Cronon’s suggestion that we need to envision our home, the city or
town that we reside in, as a “middle ground” where we can create a balanced interaction
with the wild by acknowledging the natural within the urban (85). Because the sublime
has influenced our current value system so deeply, the challenge in doing this is orienting
15
any sense of wonder or reverence towards the nature in our own backyards. Though it’s
rare that anything but the mountain peak or raging river generates a sense of awe, Cronon
proposes that we learn to see the pine tree in the urban park with as much curiosity and
respect as we have for the pine tree in the wilderness. While Marx refers to the “middle
landscape” as a pastoral scene somewhere between civilization and wilderness (23), he
also discusses the belief that “machine technology (and all that it represents) belongs, or
can be made to belong, in the middle landscape” (220). Though Marx writes more about
man coming into wilderness, and Cronon about nature coming into the city, one can see
the focus on accepting both natural and human elements in a single, “middle” landscape.
While it is helpful to look for nature in the city, we also need to expand upon
Cronon’s idea to see that the city itself is natural. The point of constructing the city as a
“natural space” though, is not just to label the city as natural, but to use our interest in the
natural as a tool to infuse greater value into the urban landscape. For those who see
nature as sacred, by identifying nature in the city and seeing how the city is natural, we
can reorient our perceptions of the city by transposing those values onto the urban setting.
In doing so, I do not intend to lessen the appeal of wilderness—it is worthy of
admiration— rather, I aim to bring the respect we have for the city on par with the respect
we have for wilderness. For clarity, my hope is not to blanket everything in existence
with the increasingly meaningless title “natural,” to say there is no difference between
wilderness and the city, because this fails to acknowledge that they both reference unique
landscapes. It would be ridiculous to claim that there is no difference between a forest
and a parking lot. Instead, the point is to show that they are not only distinct landscapes,
but are also inextricably intertwined. The human species is as dependent on the earth as
16
any other; even our seemingly “unnatural” skyscrapers are products of “natural”
materials. Our bodies, our buildings, our art, and technology are all substances that come
directly from the earth.
Poetic Methods
In order to portray the city as natural and to direct awareness towards nature in the
city, many of the poems deal directly with boundaries and perception. By both drawing
attention to boundaries as well as breaking down boundaries, these poems address the
dualisms between wilderness and civilization, nature and humans, and natural and
artificial. Some of these poems seem to feed these dualisms, whereas others dissolve
them. Perhaps the most obvious contrasts are explored in the poems “Inside” and
“Introduction to the Pastoral.” These poems allow for opposition: distinctions between
the natural and the human are created through contrasts between interior and exterior
spaces, stillness and movement, and safety and danger. The wild in these poems exists
outside, it is “beautiful and dangerous” (i.e. sublime), and is completely in flux.
Alternately, the human realm (the museum, the house) is static: even the natural within
these spaces is still and tame. Though both poems clearly acknowledge differences
between the human and the natural, the poems also fuse the two realms. Both interior
spaces, the house and museum, are dedicated to absorbing the natural world. As the
outside world becomes less wild due to human influence, the speaker in “Inside” longs to
maintain the pristine qualities of wilderness in the seemingly artificial realm of her house.
She creates a microcosm of the outside world where the weather (“paper snowflakes
17
strung through the house, /… rain in a pitcher), the wildlife (cut photos from the
calendar), and the landscapes (“the old maps/ of Soda Mountain”) can be perfectly
controlled. In “Introduction to the Pastoral,” the museum is an “ark” in the sense that it
preserves and concentrates the wonders of nature. In both of these poems, though
polarities are proposed, the dualisms are not fully established as each poem also creates a
middle ground of human/nature interaction. Though each of these poems functions in a
variety of different ways, their use of contrast shows how parts of the collection expose
binaries while simultaneously exploring a middle ground.
Other poems are less concerned with establishing the contrasts many of us are
already aware of, and instead are more focused on actually deconstructing the boundaries
constructed in the human/nature dualism. Some poems do this by literally showing
nature in the city, while others focus on seeing the human body or mind as a middle
ground that is a natural/artificial hybrid. By suggesting that humans are, at least in part,
natural themselves, the human habitat, the city, becomes somewhat natural as well. “The
Wildlife Removal Specialist” is an example of a poem that focuses on nature in the city,
and is less concerned with establishing boundaries and more focused on dissolving them.
The poem keeps returning to “how porous the city is” by giving examples of wildlife not
only in the city, but also in the “pure” human realm of the home. The poem explores the
breakdown of interior and exterior spaces quite specifically: when “termites turn a wall
into dust,” the boundary (walls) between the human (house) and the natural (outside) are
literally taken apart. “What the Tattoo Artist Said” also focuses on leveling out the
dualism by actually considering the human body as a human/nature middle ground. In
the poem, the speaker references Mary Oliver’s, “White Blossoms,” which suggests that
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death is what breaks down the human/nature dualism when the human body returns to the
soil. In this poem though, the living, human body becomes a canvas for representations
of the natural (tattoos), in an artistic articulation of longing for union with the wild.
Though both of these poems express attempts to dissolve binaries, the latter poem doesn’t
just see nature within the city, it also suggests the idea that humans themselves, their
bodies, are a bridge between the natural landscape and the artificial mind.
“Anecdote of the Lilies” takes the idea that the human body is natural one step
further, by suggesting that the human mind is the middle ground. This poem is unique
from the previous poems though, in that a large part of understanding the city as natural
in this poem, takes place through a shift in perception. “Anecdote of the Lilies” is a
response poem to Wallace Stevens’ “Anecdote of the Jar,” which in short, explains how
the human mind (which is technological due to its representation by the jar) overcomes
its opposite, wilderness (Stevens 213). The response poem recreates the mind by linking
it to the natural world. Though the mind is still technological, as it is represented by a jar,
as a vessel for something typically considered natural, lilies, the mind becomes a
nature/artifice hybrid. Because of their varied identity, the two different minds in these
poems perceive external reality, most specifically nature, in different ways. As humans,
we have the tendency to create spaces that reflect our interests and aesthetic preferences,
and to find mates that share common behaviors and hobbies. Likewise, each of these
minds has the narcissistic tendency to seek itself in the external world, to create reality in
its image. The external reality in each poem mirrors the two very different internal
identities associated with each mind. While the technological mind in the original
(Anecdote of the Jar) dominates wilderness, the hybridized mind in the response poem
19
perceives a fused landscape where the natural and urban coexist. Though “Anecdote of
the Lilies” is similar to “What the Tattoo Artist Said,” in that it deals with assimilating
the human and the natural, ultimately, what is natural in this poem depends on
perception.
Similarly, in “How to Compose Lines on the Willamette,” the speaker’s
perceptions also effect whether she sees the external world as natural or artificial. As it is
an address to Wordsworth, the poem is largely concerned with recollection. This
becomes pertinent when the speaker remembers seeing the city, but reconstructs that
memory to see the city as natural. Whereas at first she only sees ships and grain silos,
upon recollection, she reconstructs the memory to synthesize those ships and silos into
cliffs and poplars. Half of the memory is based in the reality of what was experienced,
while the other half is created. In doing so, the poem is focused on the ambiguity of the
scenes: the uncertainty whether what one saw could be considered natural or unnatural,
whether one saw a distant “sagging blue tarp” on shore or if it was actually a “swooping
blue jay.”
In summary, these poems undo the human/nature, civilization/wilderness dualisms
by both drawing attention to and dissolving the boundaries that keep them separate.
These poems approach this idea in a variety of ways, ranging from seeing nature in the
city, to seeing what is typically perceived as artificial (the human body and mind) as
natural. In the later poems discussed here, perception is what ultimately determines
whether external reality is considered natural or unnatural. Though I have only explained
these themes in relationship to a few specific poems, these themes are not exclusive to
them; most poems throughout the collection in some way introduce images of nature in
20
the city, and also deal with how the city, as well as human beings, are perceived. Clearly,
these are central ways that these particular poems function, but there are many other ways
in which they could be categorized or introduced. While boundaries are a theme in almost
every poem, other poems are more obviously focused on other subjects: some of which
utilize themes that can be directly attributed to the Romantic tradition.
Relationship to Tradition
Because the poetry of the Romantics played such a large role in constructing our
current perceptions of wilderness, certain themes such as the sublime, and techniques
such as the apostrophe have proven useful in my attempt to reconstruct our perceptions of
the urban environment. Though there are many themes and techniques that I’ve explored,
this will provide a summary of how these poems have been directly influenced by
tradition. Though I previously defined the sublime as both awe inspiring and somewhat
terrifying, as something one would want to view from a distance, the way it is
incorporated into the collection is more akin to the less threatening sublime articulated by
John Muir. With the spiritual element of sublime wilderness in mind, one can see that the
sublime is also supernatural. The supernatural, as I’ll define it, references all that is
unexplainable by science; it is the world of ghosts, goblins, gods, and universal spirit.
Just as contemporary writers such as Barry Lopez, Gretel Ehrlich, and Terry Tempest
Williams have incorporated the supernatural into their prose about wilderness, poems in
this collection, such as “Design,” integrate the supernatural as a means of articulating the
spiritual (but not terrifying) aspects of the sublime. Poems like “Introduction to the
21
Pastoral” and “The Wildlife Removal Specialist” also adopt the sublime in that the wild
is “beautiful and dangerous.” This holds true more so in the former poem, where the bees
are real, pulsing, capable of stinging, and simultaneously both gorgeous and revolting. In
the latter poem, there is a hint of the sublime in the end when the speaker recollects the
awe of watching swifts as they swirl in flight like a “black hurricane.”
As for poetic techniques adopted from the Romantic and Transcendental poets, the
apostrophe is used in this collection to address inanimate entities such as wilderness, as
well as authors from the past. The apostrophe (an address to an absent person or
personified entity that is incapable of responding) is a technique employed by both
Whitman and Wordsworth to create a sense of intimacy with the environment around
them. In “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” Whitman writes,
Flow on, river!...
…Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
Gorgeous clouds…drench with your splendor me…
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta!—stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn! (111115)
By addressing the river, the clouds, the masts of sailboats and the city hills in the second
person instead of the third person, Whitman creates a more immediate relationship to
them. In “Last Visit,” though the sense of intimacy with wilderness is largely attributable
to the situation (the speaker and wilderness are dating), by addressing the wilderness,
interaction becomes possible and with it, familiarity. Despite this, the sense of intimacy
between speaker and wilderness is tainted by the fact that the “relationship” is no longer
working out. Though the poem seems largely about separation, embedded within the
poem is this sense of a prior intimacy.
22
Relationship to Contemporary Poetry
In addition to employing methods that arise out of the relevant poetic traditions,
this collection also looks to contemporary poets to see how their work is representing
nature and the city. While most authors who have carried on more traditional pastoral
themes situate their poems in rural and wilderness settings, there are many poems by
contemporary authors that have adopted a more holistic perspective by writing urban
pastorals, though few poets have pursued the theme consistently in their work. In the
anthology, Urban Nature, editor Laure-Anne Bosselaar has compiled work by over 130
contemporary poets that addresses themes of unexpected juxtaposition by focusing in on
nature in an urban context. There are two ideas in the book that are particularly relevant
in reconstructing our perceptions of the city: scale and deconstruction. What I mean by
the former, is that poets commonly highlight nature in the city on a variety of scales and
in doing so, draw attention to nature in the city that might not be noticed otherwise.
Some of these poems are about things as pervasive as weather and the seasons, while
others zero in on the minute and the miniscule, the “tiny creatures gnawing at the shreds”
of a small hipbone on the pavement (Williams line 8). Amy Clampitt writes about the
minor leak in the subway as a “musical/ miniscule/ waterfall” (lines 58-60), and Mark
Defoe notices a red salamander in a parking lot: a “minute dinosaur, gaping a toothless
mouth” (lines 8-9). Within my poems, when I have included images of nature in the city,
I have attempted to include a variety of scales as well as locations: from as small as a
mosquito to as large as a cloud of swifts, from as low as the basement to as high as the
23
sky. Most frequently in the “Urban Nature” anthology, nature is something persisting in
the city (animals, plants, seasons), while the city itself is not seen as natural. Many poems
develop the natural and urban to be in contrast with each other: the red salamander is the
only “soft thing amid hot steel” (line 9). While there are poems that represent the city as
metaphorically natural—the curving onramps of a freeway are seen as “floral loops”
(Snyder lines 8-9)— there are only a few that see the city as literally natural.
The second strategy of thinking that satisfies my desire for a portrayal of the city
as natural is deconstruction. Deconstruction is a topic that is particularly relevant for
dissolving dualisms as it emphasizes the relationship between two seemingly separate
things and in doing so, breaks down binary opposition. Meg Kearney incorporates this
idea when she attempts to break down the seemingly unnatural elements of the city to
their natural sources when she asks, “concrete, glass, steel—meaning limestone, silica,
gypsum, sand, / manganese, sodium, sulfur, ore—anything unnatural here?” (lines 6-9).
One might feel that a skyscraper is the polar opposite of a sandy beach, but
deconstruction highlights the relationship between the two. The speaker in “The Winter
Atrium,” for example, takes on this deconstruction when she first proposes that a glass
atrium is unnatural, but then begins to reconsider as she ties the material (glass) back to
its source (sand).
Conclusion
By describing current and past lyric genres and formal elements, this introduction
demonstrates some of the ways this poetic project is breaking from tradition and other
24
ways in which it responds to tradition. Though not all the poems in the collection or all of
the themes within them are discussed here, this introduction has clarified some of the
more pertinent themes that work to reconstruct our perceptions of the city. While it
would be presumptuous to assume that these poems would create a dramatic change in
the reader, at least on a personal level, these poems are my own attempt to grasp the
perspective that the city is indeed an environment worthy of admiration. So far, these
poems have provided an outlet for contemplating this idea and have only started to
explore the many possibilities associated with themes such as boundaries, deconstruction,
the sublime, etc. Individually, none of these poems single-handedly achieves the goal of
reconstructing our perceptions of the urban landscape, but as a collection they begin to
reach towards fulfilling my initial intent. Ultimately, the civilization/wilderness dualism
is deeply embedded in our culture and would take more than a handful of poems to make
it fall apart, though this collection does begin to chip away at it. As has been described,
the importance of doing so is relevant not only for our psychological relationship to the
place we live, but also as a means to become aware of the injustices we’re capable of
imposing on urban and native peoples in an effort to preserve the fallacy of a “pristine”
wilderness. Though these dualisms emerge in so much of our daily discourse about what
is natural and what isn’t, the wilderness/civilization separation can be partially attributed
to the Romantic authors and their use of the sublime in response to the industrial
revolution. While prose also played a large role in the construction of wilderness, I have
highlighted the role of poetry specifically as a means to show what it is capable of as an
instrument for changing perspective. As expected, poetry may not be able to directly ban
pesticides or subsidize biofuels, but it is capable of readjusting how we perceive external
25
reality. Even if poetry is incapable of saving the rainforest with direct action, the next
time I lament the loss of the Amazon or the old growth redwoods, I’ll remember that it
was poetry that sparked our desire to preserve those “wild lands” to begin with.
26
27
Poetics of the Middle Landscape
28
29
How to Compose Lines on the Willamette
1.
There are no pure escapes.
Even for you,
The din of towns and cities
Tainted the Wye. Confess it:
It must have been distracting
Beneath the sycamore.
The historians say that
Barges chugged loudly upriver in 1798,
Ironworks along shore
Blazed coal, expelled sulfurous gas,
And slouching miner’s hovels
Lined the banks.
I can’t find them in your poem.
After five years had passed; five summers and
Five long winters, what you wanted the most
Were lofty cliffs, groves, and delicate farms—
But were they really all you took with you?
Perhaps while traveling by carriage to
Bristol, you made the memory pristine:
The river sounds became half-heard and half-created;
The barges, ironworks, and gases
Became the boulders, wrens, and grasses.
2.
In the canoe,
Surrounded by water,
I am passed by a ship
That sounds like rubbed rust.
It moans beside a grain silo
That transfers cereal
And expels the yellow smell of grain.
Tall glass buildings crowd the sun
And the sagging blue tarps of rough homes
Line the banks.
30
3.
Later this evening while driving home
I will recall canoeing: once again
I will unfold those steep and lofty cliffs
(Remembering the tall sides of that ship),
The thin, tall poplars, their sweet, mellow smell,
The sun reflecting off the glassy
Surface of the river (those glistening
Watery windows of tall buildings),
The swooping blue jays and the small mud domes
Clinging to bridges, made by swallow’s mouths.
31
What the Tattoo Artist Said
Sometimes it’s tempting to spell a lover’s name wrong,
especially when they’ve already got the portrait
of an ex inked on their shoulder.
While cutting through the cemetery going to work today
I thought about other unfortunate intimacies:
a customer with Frankenstein on his forearm,
and others united with maniac chainsaws, snarling guard dogs,
revolvers, robots, or barcodes. I always remind them,
saying, you’re choosing what you never have to let go,
what you’ll feel closer to,
what you might become.
Like in that Oliver poem
where she lies down to think about death
but instead falls asleep in a field of flowers.
The one where she wakes up covered with wet petals
and wrapped up in vines, feeling so close to that boundary
where her body becomes the plants she’s tangled in.
Once I spent days wrapping
a man’s arms in purple tentacles:
at least the angelheaded hipsters
know what’s worth longing for.
They come in to be covered
in lilies, butterflies, and birds—
but does it get them any closer
to that lush, ravenous world?
Can these plants in fixed bloom
or these flat frescoed feathers
take us in? While pressing an owl into
a woman’s shoulder
I remembered a time when I was a kid
that a crow would tap at the bedroom window.
I left it open once and waited
and for just a moment
he stepped inside.
32
That woman didn’t say a word
during all those hours sitting together,
but I’d like to think something like that
happened to her too,
and all she wanted
was to sit on the sill for hours
with that wild bird perched
unafraid on her shoulder.
33
Inside
This calendar of disappearing animals
has been counting down to the ball drop all year.
Midnight, and the fireworks hiss.
These winter nights are so warm and dry,
I keep paper snowflakes strung
through the house,
and carry rain in a pitcher
for the plants.
I cut the photos of owls and wolves
from the calendar
to keep them the same— salmon, bears—
I murmur name upon name
and place them by the old maps
of Soda Mountain: a landscape
printed without roads,
with forests that never thin or lace,
and slivers of lakes
that stay blue.
Beyond the scope of the window,
beyond the horns, the banging pans,
and the fireworks
the sky is speckled with the light of dead stars
that burned out long ago.
Even they are apparitions of their former selves.
I close the blinds when the world
is too much with me,
lie awake discovering new shapes of animals
in the stucco above the bed.
I often leave the blinds closed
to attend to the one world I can keep.
34
Introduction to the Pastoral
Our teacher said that the flooded tidepools
and the sharp anemones
threatened our ankles and our soles,
so we escaped to the gentle representations
of the natural history museum,
where we saw more than the sea:
we saw animals, took turns petting an empty otter
with a velveteen pelt
laid belly-up on solid teal water,
still as Superior on its finest days,
we turned to see a gull
perpetually preening with his thin yellow bill
and nearby the earthly dome of a turtle,
slower than the slowest,
and all around enough animals for the ark.
We took pictures of ourselves next to the eggs,
dozens of light blue and soft tan ovals, pricked and drained,
and took others standing in front of the elk racks
so we sprouted our own limb-like hats.
And passed dioramas of landscapes,
small rooms called tundra, river, jungle, grassland
with plants in fixed bloom and flat frescoed distances.
The ocean had sculptures of two chubby sea-cows
grazing without progress in a green field of rigid kelp,
tame enough to be yoked.
Lastly there was a cross section of a hive enclosed in glass,
where the bees still crawled and delivered
over the thin gold walls of their cells.
Shiny black faces, crisp sheer wings,
the pulsing swell of tails all moved untraceably
crossing over and under
as a mass of vibration and honey.
Solitary bees emerged,
surfacing to travel out a small tube
connected to the wall,
leading somewhere beautiful
and dangerous outside.
35
The Winter Garden
There’s less soil here than there is sand:
It arches in a thin sheet over the precise rows
Of indoor palm trees. If the room feels unnatural
It’s no wonder: the quartz grains have been turned to glass.
When the sun comes in, the atrium
Holds onto it, and the space warms at a low heat.
It’s still too cold to sit outside, so the heat
And mainly the view of the Hudson, brown and churning with sand
And silt, draw me here. At sunset, the atrium
Smolders the color of a yellow rose
As light burns through the glass.
It’s then that it seems almost as wild and natural
As the river. I’d like to think that this space is as natural
As what’s outside. That when the heat
Of the kiln made the glass
Out of sand,
When the palms were planted in rows,
And when the sky was captured inside the atrium,
They weren’t spoiled. That even the way the atrium
Was touched and constructed was natural.
We can be intricate, (these sheets of glass are geometric as rows
Of honeycomb cells) though we are not always. In the heat
Of New Mexico, a bomb dropped in the desert melted the sand
Into a crusted crater of glass.
It must have turned into glass,
Into that glistening, inverted atrium so quickly.
Glassmaking in Stourbridge was slow— waiting for the sand
To turn, waiting for the moment it became unnatural.
It was spooned into the heat
By workers walking in a row
36
To the kiln with full shovels. Inside, the sand rose
And fizzed, until it became a viscous caramel of molten glass.
It was emptied out into a cauldron of water where the heat
Made it bubble into crisp atriums,
Into the gold shells of drowned beetles, into the natural
And crazed eyes of dragonflies. If there was a moment the sand
Became unnatural, I missed it. There were other times the sand
Changed before settling beneath uneven rows of palms, the heat
Of the sun, the sky like an atrium, beside the ocean still as glass.
37
Song of the Sheep Dog
“Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking
upon you”
-Walt Whitman
The neighborhood dog is named after you, Walt Whitman.
He barks a litany of longings late into the night.
Or is it that you’ve become the sheep dog, Walt Whitman—
your body turned into one great beard?
When you greet me on the porch
you smell my hands, my shoes, the skin behind my knees.
Is this how you know me, Walt Whitman?
In that poem you wrote when you were still a man
you had so much to say about the sights,
about the gold light of dusk
illuminating the gulls, the river, the ships.
Just as you saw them, I too have seen them.
But now, walking this morning, you lead me around by the pull of your nose.
You linger on the invisible, the scent of what lies under the asphalt,
what might be rich loam, or packed dust,
what I sometimes forget is there at all.
Miles away an orchard of fig trees has layered the ground with broken fruit—
I imagine the pink pulp smells like champagne.
Tell me, Walt Whitman, does it reach us here?
Can you smell the morning glories before they bloom?
Or when the sky grays, as it does now, does it smell electric like rain?
If you could tell me, Walt Whitman, you would have so much to say.
When it rains, and you curl up on the porch, you whimper in your sleep.
Perhaps they are dreams as incomprehensible as words.
38
I have seen you watching the men and women passing on the sidewalk
and wonder if you can smell where they’ve come from,
if the scent of their yearning hangs in the air.
I wonder Walt Whitman,
Can you smell the inside of my mouth when I say nothing at all?
39
The Wildlife Removal Specialist
It must have been days ago
that the small possums ventured
off their mother’s back,
crawling through the gray dark of the attic
until they fell through the stories,
and became trapped inside the walls.
Their thin claws had been haunting the kitchen since,
scraping on the inside of the gypsum boards.
I cut holes in the drywall to pull them out,
sifting through the dark
with a chainmail glove.
Of course the homeowners were concerned,
uncertain how their homes
became so penetrable.
But I can’t bring myself to console them,
I like the way they come back like this.
Even after I spend hours sealing vents
and attic windows
next week someone will spot the gold gleam
of a raccoon’s eyes reflecting
a flashlight in the garage
or better yet, they’ll step into the living room
to find a skunk padding across the floral
print of an armchair.
No matter how often I separate them,
the wildlife from the people,
the animals keep returning.
When I find groundhogs that
have dug themselves into basements,
and when I climb into lofts
where the ceiling sways
with the soft, dark stalactites of bats,
I’m relieved by their insistence.
It reminds me of how porous
the city is whenever I see termites
turn a wall into dust, or chimneys filled
with perching swifts.
Every fall, thousands of them
40
flock above the smokestack
in Northeast. They swirl
like a black hurricane,
growing larger and thicker
until all at once, at dusk,
they begin to funnel
inward to roost,
as if sucked into the chimney
like a silk scarf
pulled through a closed fist,
they spiral down
like ash returning
to where it came from.
41
Tinker Creek
Everything settles to the lowest point
drifts to the watershed’s deepest
groove
except for you. The unconscious sag of gravity didn’t take you here,
the way I happened into this valley,
weary of traveling uphill.
You found this by pilgrimage,
but since you left, whatever is holy has gone unseen, or has relocated,
residing somewhere up and out from the troughs of the Appalachians,
lingering as far as the sky.
The name Moses
means saved or drawn out from water.
Wading in the creek the water tension cuffs me around the thighs.
I was never placed in a wooden basket,
and have little faith I’ll be found.
What lifted you out of the river, Dillard? Did it find you—
how did you find it here?
Was it the divinity of the luna moth winging
above the valley, the sun-glossed beetles, the hovering mosquitoes?
Slogging downstream, my feet hook, stumble, in the mouths of discarded tires,
I part my way through a film of eddying cigarette butts,
steeping with the irreverent.
Focusing on the creek bottom, I’m wary to shift my gaze,
unwilling to step on the most painful stones.
Come summer the mosquitoes escape from Tinker’s shallows,
flying up and out from the stagnant pools,
delivering pink dots to exposed spreads of skin.
Children connect them as modest constellations
on each other’s backs.
One summer the cup of the Dipper tipped from my shoulder blade
for a week,
made me look up at the sky some of those nights
looking for a forgotten god,
considering how the mantis folds its front arms in prayer
before taking its prey.
42
Design
A black cloud of swifts drifts above me
as I wait for dusk to bring them to roost.
Flying in liquid formation, they coast
in tidal ribbons, becoming dark billows wafting.
An old brick chimney, blackened by soot,
yawns like a cauldron from below,
at the birds,
who circle like smoke.
The sky shifts darker, into a black night,
a shade that makes the silhouettes fade,
and causes the birds to tuck away.
They descend like thousands of loosed paper kites
that the sliver moon sweeps like a sheep dog, keeper
of tides: trickling swifts into the chimney,
they are poured from great height,
steered to perch to brick for the night.
Stuffed with feathers,
this pipe sucking smoke,
puffs late arrivals away.
They bubble from the brim into the night,
flying into the distance small as moths.
43
Anecdote of the Lilies
I filled a jar with lilies
And placed it in the graveyard on Palatine hill.
It made the precise city
Surround that hill.
The skyline grew up to it,
And the houses sprawled from Hillsboro to Happy Valley.
The jar was round upon the ground
And leggy with slovenly flower stems.
The flowers eased in everywhere
They grew where it was grey and bare
While the birds and bushes sprawled
Beyond the graveyard on the hill.
44
The Back Stage Bar
On first entering, I scan the room,
trying to draw it in, to hold the space
in a glance, but it is too much.
The ceiling even evades peripheral sight:
I trace my gaze up
and further still, until my chin is lifted,
the back of my neck creased.
I hear it’s seven stories up,
before the ceiling finally closes the room.
It might be higher, since I feel small as a moth,
minute enough to be swallowed.
A woman’s voice echoes through the bar
saying something about desire.
It filters in from next door, lightly,
almost indecipherably, from a film
projected on the backside of the far wall.
I imagine her staring out from the screen,
her enormous lips, big as inflated canoes,
floating over the pit of her mouth,
while her monstrous breasts billow,
swollen like hot air balloons.
Maybe the voice doesn’t belong to her at all.
The room itself seems to be mumbling the echoes
of hunger. I wrap my ankles around the legs
of the barstool, slide these small
fluttering hands along the bar.
The wood is thick with varnish, slippery
as the inside of a mouth.
Above the pool table
a chandelier dangles
45
like an enormous spider
from a long, brass thread.
It looks at me unblinking,
with its many round, white eyes.
And I wonder, what’s inside
those perfect, bright sphere’s?
I imagine its stiff and delicate legs
latched around me,
the crisp, awful, bite
but also the moments
of being held closely by its brass strands:
being bound in that warm case
of spider silk. The pleasures of constriction:
my body almost too big for that small cocoon.
And those eyes, having those luminous
eyes above me.
Having that mouth
fill me with venom, fill me radiantly,
with so much light.
46
Last Visit
It’s not you, Wilderness, it’s me.
I only see you once a year, maybe twice
and I can’t tolerate the longing
of a long distance relationship.
I’ve asked you to go home to Portland with me,
but you always decline, you say
you’re not sure you could survive there.
Maybe you’re right.
The parks there all try to be like you,
but if you visited,
you might become just like them:
simple and reserved.
There is this one garden though,
that I’ve been planting bulbs with.
I never feel like I’m imposing
when I buy her new flowers,
whereas I’m always afraid
I’m changing you.
That time I brought you starlings
and sparrows, and enough ivy garlands
to weave around each tree,
you seemed overwhelmed by them.
Maybe it’s only the gifts, but whenever I visit
I think my presence alone makes you less wild.
I don’t mean to make you jealous
of the garden, it’s just that I know I can’t have you:
whether you go home with me
47
or I come to visit, I spoil you.
The garden, she’s not quite like you,
but I’m trying to love her.
She doesn’t mind
when I spend the afternoons
nesting crocus corms into the soil—
yesterday she even sent me home
with a basket of turnips,
beets, and pale, sweet carrots.
48
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