Assortment of Nature Poems

[carabid_47]

Hello everyone, and what’s up!

In my topic “What’s your favourite method of insect collection?” I asked if there was already a topic that was posted here on iNatForum that was not closed to new replies, and I was told that no, there is not. Yet.
But, now there is! This new topic that I’ve posted here is specifically for types of poetry, free verse, epics, narrative poetry, haiku, pastoral poetry, all of them, that are nature-related, or are about nature in any form.

I don’t particularly like poetry, even though I am good at it. So I am told.
But I am sure that there are a lot of you who use iNatForum that are either good at, want to try, or just enjoy poetry at its finest, and even when it isn’t, and I think that this topic should be for us to have fun. I don’t care whether any poetry that is included on here is self-created or if it is someone else’s, but either way, you should try to have fun with it! (If it is someone else’s creation, then obviously you should give them credit, but we already know that)

I really hope that all of you who read from, or contribute to this enjoy it, and I will talk to y’all later!
Peace out!

-Connor

[bobmcd]

Trees By Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see…

[barnabywalters]

Coincidentally, today is the 237th anniversary of the day William Cowper (probably best known for his anti-slavery poem The Negro’s Complaint) ate a Halibut, and wrote this poem commemorating its life and memory. Not the most nature-ey of the nature poems, but I find it funny enough to have recorded a reading of it.

To the Immortal Memory of the Halibut, On which I Dined this Day, Monday, April 26, 1784 (W. Cowper)

[carabid_47]

Somewhat has to do with this topic, I should probably try doing more involving nature.

Passage of Time-

Making it through Earth and through rain, making it through birth and through pain. Remembering from summer, then back to spring, remembering from autumn turning to winter.
Feeling the pain turning to shame, feeling the echoes of time gone past, feeling the great hands of time, slowly ticking

the time.

away.

from.

you.

-Connor Graham, March 19, 2021

[dinofelis]

One of my favourites has to be The Tyger by William Blake.

[carabid_47]

Raphidioptera
By Bruce Noll

Why give us the
handle of snake fly?
We have nothing to do
with serpents and never
have been seen to go
slithering on bellies.
We do have legs you know.

And wings,
like swans and herons
or geese who all have
long pronotums.

Just for laughs you
could have named
us after the giraffe.

But to tag us with
a fly and a snake?
Why that’s an insult
doubly hard to take.

[willc-t]

A Tropical Haiku

The bot fly visits
It burrows deeper within
I miss cholera

[carabid_47]

: ) Love it @willc-t

[carabid_47]

Jessica Bennett Sep 2013

Entomology.

Into a bug a drawing pin
Secured to collection of sorts
A neat inscription lies beneath
Latin, commonly known as, caught.

One of the ones I read a few days ago, seemed like a nice one. (depending on you’re opinion that is!)

[abrub]

I have to recommend “Wild Gueese” by Mary Oliver, it’s kind words always help me feel better about the uncertainties of life :)

A slightly darker but just as fascinating poem is “Two-headed Calf” by Laura Gilpin and I guess to some lesser extent one could consider “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost to be about nature as well, since it is set in a birch forest?

[lisa_bennett]

Omg

[carabid_47]

Our chicks fell asleep on my back when I was with them last week, so I came up with this;
Budding Youth-

Three young chicks,
Budding like dandelion seeds,
Cheeping and peeping,
Then pecking and climbing,
Perched atop thy’s head,
Curiosity of a child,
Rapidly growing.

-Connor Graham, April 13, 2021

@abrub , I think I’ve heard of “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, and I still really like reading it, glad I’m not the only one I know who likes it! : )

[lisa_bennett]

Daffodils, by William Wordsworth. One of the few poems I can quote by heart. It’s simple and sweet :)

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

[carabid_47]

I’ll be back in maybe an hour, love all of the replies and poems from people, thanks!

Best regards,

Connor

[RoseRobin]

From my ‘Rose Robin Nature Diary’ page on Facebook…

[pmeisenheimer]

Trees at the Arctic Circle (Salix Cordifolia—Ground Willow)
by Al Purdy

They are 18 inches long
or even less
crawling under rocks
groveling among the lichens
bending and curling to escape
making themselves small
finding new ways to hide
Coward trees
I am angry to see them
like this
not proud of what they are
bowing to weather instead
careful of themselves
worried about the sky
afraid of exposing their limbs
like a Victorian married couple

I call to mind great Douglas firs
I see tall maples waving green
and oaks like gods in autumn gold
the whole horizon jungle dark
and I crouched under that continual night
But these
even the dwarf shrubs of Ontario
mock them
Coward trees

And yet—and yet—
their seed pods glow
like delicate gray earrings
their leaves are veined and intricate
like tiny parkas
They have about three months
to make sure the species does not die
and that’s how they spend their time
unbothered by any human opinion
just digging in here and now
sending their roots down down down
And you know it occurs to me
about 2 feet under
those roots must touch permafrost
ice that remains ice forever
and they use it for their nourishment
they use death to remain alive

I see that I’ve been carried away
in my scorn of the dwarf trees
most foolish in my judgments
To take away the dignity
of any living thing
even tho it cannot understand
the scornful words
is to make life itself trivial
and yourself the Pontifex Maximus
of nullity
I have been stupid in a poem
I will not alter the poem
but let the stupidity remain permanent
as the trees are
in a poem
the dwarf trees of Baffin Island

          *Pangnirtung*

[schizoform]

I’ve enjoyed some of Gary Snyder’s work.

[pmeisenheimer]

@carabid_47 Thanks for this topic, Connor. April is Poetry Month in some places. We should have had this going for weeks.

[jasonhernandez74]

I really like

The Chambered Nautilus

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES SR.

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,—
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

[carabid_47]

Thanks, I’ve been thinking about it since I joined iNatForum, and I didn’t know if there was already a post/topic for it. If this one ends up closing to new replies before next April, I will try to remember to post this, or another one before April 1st.
Thank you for commenting Peter, I appreciate it a lot. Today hasn’t been the best, lots of carpenter and piss ant bites, lots of amazing beetles lost into a drainage pipe at the same times too. Thank you again.
@pmeisenheimer
Which countries if I may ask?