In a similar vein, this rumination on a simple ecosystem involving seabirds, ursines and baked goods is widely (but not universally) attributed to Christopher Isherwood.
The common cormorant or shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag
The reason you will see no doubt
It is to keep the lightning out
But what these unobservant birds
Have never noticed is that herds
Of wandering bears may come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.
Thanks but I don’t think it was Ogden Nash as I already knew of him -
The song of canaries
never varies
and when they’re moulting
they’re pretty revolting.
The shortest poem counts as a wildlife poem:
Fleas
Adam
'ad 'em
A poem I wrote a few years ago, inspired by a t shirt I got from a nature center that said “The Marsh is calling and I must go”, which became the first line of the poem.
The Marsh is calling,
and I must go
Off to the land
Where the wild things grow.
Down river lane,
Come wind or rain,
There I am and there I’ll be
When the mist comes creeping
stealthily
And the frogs start peeping
quietly
And the stars start waking
magically
Where fireflies glow,
There you’ll find me.
I don’t entirely know if this counts, but I’ll add it anyways. I thought of it for some reason while I was chopping dried mealworms to mix into the chicken feed.
I’m chopping up dry mealworms,
Gonna put 'em in a can.
Then I’ll sell ‘em to all the kids,
An’ tell 'em they’re from candyland.
-Connor Graham, May 5, 2021
I think the effect of it works better if read in a stereotypical pirate-sounding voice.
That was beautiful.
Thank you.
Amazing.
That was just amazing.
Love it😂
Some years ago John Hegley was on an arts magazine programme on the radio. It discussed an Italian artist who had died young from malaria in Africa, I can’t remember his name. Hegley was challenged to write a poem about him before the end of the programme.
There once was an olive-skinned man
Who came from Rome, not Milan.
He went somewhere hotter
And before long he got a
Bite from an Anopheles mosquito before immunisation had even began.
Well, that Hegley poem, if nothing else, is noteworthy for its stark realism. And yes, Genus Anopheles and Genus Plasmodium are as much a part of nature as any other organisms.
On a similar vein, I know of one involving Aedes aegypti and Genus Flavivirus:
You are going to have the fever
Yellow eyes!
In about ten days from now
Iron bands will clamp your brow;
Your tongue resemble curdled cream
A rusty streak the centre seam;
Your mouth will taste of untold things
With claws and horns and fins and wings;
Your head will weigh a ton or more
And forty gales within it roar!
– Jocelyn Pook, “Yellow Fever Psalm”
Here is one about saproxylic beetle habitat.
In the stump of the old tree…
In the stump of the old tree, where the heart has rotted out, there is a hole the length of a man’s arm, and a dank pool at the bottom of it where the rain gathers, and the old leaves turn into lacy skeletons. But do not put your hand down to see, because
in the stumps of old trees, where the hearts have rotted out, there are holes the length of a man’s arm, and dank pools at the bottom where the rain gathers and old leaves turn to lace, and the beak of a dead bird gapes like a trap. But do not put your hand down to see, because
in the stumps of old trees with rotten hearts, where the rain gathers and the laced leaves and the dead bird like a trap, there are holes the length of a man’s arm, and in every crevice of the rotten wood grow weasel’s eyes like molluscs, their lids open and shut with the tide. But do not put your hand down to see, because
in the stumps of old trees where the rain gathers and the trapped leaves and the beak and the laced weasel’s eyes, there are holes the length of a man’s arm, and at the bottom a sodden bible written in the language of rooks. But do not put your hand down to see, because
in the stumps of old trees where the hearts have rotted out there are holes the length of a man’s arm where the weasels are trapped and the letters of the rook language are laced on the sodden leaves, and at the bottom there is a man’s arm. But do not put your hand down to see, because
in the stumps of old trees where the hearts have rotted out there are deep holes and dank pools where the rain gathers, and if you ever put your hand down to see, you can wipe it in the sharp grass till it bleeds, but you’ll never want to eat with it again.
Hugh Sykes-Davies, Contemporary Poetry and Prose, 7 (Nov. 1936), 129.
The Axolotl and the Ammocoete
by Walter Garstang
from “Larval Forms, and other Zoological verses”, 1966
Ambystoma’s a giant newt who rears in swampy waters,
as other newts are wont to do, a lot of fishy daughters:
These Axolotls, having gills, pursue a life aquatic,
But, when they should transform to newts, are naughty and erratic.
They change upon compulsion, if the water grows too foul,
for then they have to use their lungs, and go ashore to prowl:
but when a lake’s attractive, nicely aired, and full of food,
they cling to youth perpetual, and rear a tadpole brood.
And newts Perrenibranchiate have gone from bad to worse:
They think aquatic life is bliss, terrestrial a curse.
They do not even contemplate a change to suit the weather,
But live as tadpoles, breed as tadpoles, tadpoles all together!
Now look at Ammocoetes there, reclining in the mud,
Preparing thyroid-extract to secure his tiny food:
If just a touch of sunshine more should make his gonads grow,
The lancelet’s claims to ancestry would get a nasty blow!
Asleep lie mountain-top and mountain-gully,
shoulder also and ravine;
the creeping-things that come from the dark earth,
the beasts whose lying is upon the hillside,
the generation of the bees,
the monsters in the depths of the purple brine,
all lie asleep,
and with them the tribes of the winging birds.
Alcman, Greek, seventh century BC.
Last year i posted poems by Al Purdy and Christopher Isherwood (maybe). I’m going old school this year, at least for starters, with something from Keats. It isn’t about nature, per se, but like much of his work is suffused with nature themes. As an aside, although this is from maybe his most widely referenced work he was really unhappy with the poem as a whole. The opening stanza of the epic poem Endymion:
A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.
I will add the famous Frog haiku by Matsuo Basho. And since I can’t pick just one translation, I, instead, link to thirty-two of them: Thirty-Two Translations of Matsuo Basho’s Frog Haiku
Peonies, heavy and pink as ’80s bridesmaid dresses
and scented just the same. Sweet pea,
because I like clashing smells and the car
I drove in college was named that: a pea-green
Datsun with a tendency to backfire.
Sugar snap peas, which I might as well
call memory bites for how they taste like
being fourteen and still mourning the horse farm
I had been uprooted from at ten.
Also: sage, mint, and thyme—the clocks
of summer—and watermelon and blue lobelia.
Lavender for the bees and because I hate
all fake lavender smells. Tomatoes to cut
and place on toasted bread for BLTs, with or without
the b and the l. I’d like, too, to plant
the sweet alyssum that smells like honey and peace,
and for it to bloom even when it’s hot,
and also lilies, so I have something left
to look at when the rabbits come.
They always come. They are
always hungry. And I think I am done
protecting one sweet thing from another.
What I would like to grow in my Garden, by Katherine Riegel
My favorite poems are always haiku and I have a huge collection of them saved off. It would be hard to decide which to feature. But these are some (English translations) I really personally respond to.
Clear-colored stones
Are vibrating in the brook-bed…
Or the water is
Soseki
Now that I am old
Even tender days of spring
See . . . can make me cry
Issa
A small garden
Brimming with dew . . .
Half a gallon of it
Shiki
Ah . . . morning glory
Glowing with the indigo
Of some mountain pool
Buson
Congratulations
Issa! . . . You have survived to feed
This year’s mosquitoes
Issa
For deliciousness
Try fording this rivulet…
Sandals in one hand
Buson
Last night a snowfall
Today clear cobalt heaven
And white mantled pines
Roka
There is neither heaven nor earth
Only snow
Falling incessantly
Hashin