1859
1859: the year oregon became a state, the magazine of the same title, and also a time when a great poet walked the earth noticing things and writing them down.
that would be gerard. gerard manley hopkins. i've mentioned him before. i'm pretty sure we would have been nature-loving friends. i doubt he wondered too much if someone (me) would be reading what he wrote about the weather and how the clouds looked one particular day as she also looked out the window at her own particular cloud view. he has something to "say" in response to the world around me that, in some ways, is still the same as it was in 1859.
my heart sank a week ago when neighbors were felling trees. (i was relieved to find out that they were merely topping them to avoid breakage and that they would sprout from the trunk and grow again.) either way, i couldn't imagine that section of driveway sky without the shimmering leaves in the breeze. hopkins wrote a poem called "binsley poplars, felled 1879" in which he too laments, "O if we but knew what we do when we delve or hew--hack and rack the growing green! after-comers cannot guess the beauty been, rural scene, sweet especial rural scene."
when i find garbage on my morning loop or at the coast, lately the line that has been going through my mind is also from hopkins, this one from "God's grandeur" and somewhat more hopeful in the second part: "And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; and wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; there lives the dearest freshness deep down things!"
the near-full moon was shining in my window early this morning when i woke up to birdsong (4:37 am to be exact) and the sky was just tipping it's hat from star-brimmed to firstlight. "look at the stars! look, look up at the skies! O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!" ("the starlight night").
157 years might technically separate us, but according to nature, i can't help but feel we're having timeless conversation.
that would be gerard. gerard manley hopkins. i've mentioned him before. i'm pretty sure we would have been nature-loving friends. i doubt he wondered too much if someone (me) would be reading what he wrote about the weather and how the clouds looked one particular day as she also looked out the window at her own particular cloud view. he has something to "say" in response to the world around me that, in some ways, is still the same as it was in 1859.
my heart sank a week ago when neighbors were felling trees. (i was relieved to find out that they were merely topping them to avoid breakage and that they would sprout from the trunk and grow again.) either way, i couldn't imagine that section of driveway sky without the shimmering leaves in the breeze. hopkins wrote a poem called "binsley poplars, felled 1879" in which he too laments, "O if we but knew what we do when we delve or hew--hack and rack the growing green! after-comers cannot guess the beauty been, rural scene, sweet especial rural scene."
when i find garbage on my morning loop or at the coast, lately the line that has been going through my mind is also from hopkins, this one from "God's grandeur" and somewhat more hopeful in the second part: "And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; and wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; there lives the dearest freshness deep down things!"
the near-full moon was shining in my window early this morning when i woke up to birdsong (4:37 am to be exact) and the sky was just tipping it's hat from star-brimmed to firstlight. "look at the stars! look, look up at the skies! O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!" ("the starlight night").
157 years might technically separate us, but according to nature, i can't help but feel we're having timeless conversation.
Comments
Post a Comment