I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.
~ Pablo Neruda
Patch
This little patch of earth is the greatest paradox in my life. I long to wander and explore and commune with this precious earth - to see her beauty in all her corners.. to find myself amongst the wild things. Simultaneously I live for the flower season, for vegetable season, for butterflies, hummingbirds.. warblers, nests, spiders, and snakes.. I long for my back to ache from spending time with the plants that grow here and my hands to be rough from the dirt that clings to my pores. I long for the complexity in a silent starlit night and the symphonic satisfaction of cricket song.. The buzz of bumble bees and the yellow of black eyed Susan’s.. I long to bathe in mountain streams and crawl under the mountain laurel smelling the moss and damp earth.. and watch my little plants grow to become food for my family and medicine for my soul. My nature is both nurturer and individual - wanderer and hermit.. seeker and finder.. lost and found.. settled and restless.. I am all all the emotions and all the labels. I do not fit in a box nor do I fit in a circle..
Great Egret
How I go to the woods
Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable.
I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours.
Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.
If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.
~ Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose
Congaree
Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?" That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.
~ Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
