Assortment of Nature Poems

Nature Talk
103

As I have mentioned umpteen times in umpteen places I am in the middle of the never-ending move. I am hopeful it is the last.

Because over the course of my lifetime I have moved many, many times through multiple cities in multiple countries, I have just a few things onto which I hold. A few are books, one of which is a volume of Ogden Nash poems with an inscription inside dated to my sixteenth birthday:

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My father traveled frequently and at length for his work. Sometimes we accompanied him but often we did not, so when he was home, I would peek into his home office just to look at him. If he caught me with my eye at the door and he was not too busy, he would say, “Thank goodness you are there, just in time for a break! I have time for __ number of poems, I think! Pick them out!” And so he made time for me but also limited me to two or three poems or whatever limit he set, though he usually let me add on one more because love.

By the time he inscribed the book to me I was off at school, having left the year before, but somehow I have managed to hold onto it. My father died eighteen years ago, and I still think of those Ogden Nash poems I remember by heart almost daily. Because Ogden Nash has so many wonderful, playful poems about lesser Ode-d creatures, sometimes things people post Observations of on iNaturalist trigger “poem memories” for me, which I adore.

This poem is the one that springs to mind whenever anyone here posts about viruses or travelers diseases, about how to Observe them or being affected by them. It is the same one my father used to recite to me whenever as a little girl I was sick.

The Germ
A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.
- Ogden Nash

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104

I haven’t been doing much nature-related pieces recently, though I have been writing a LOT more poetry since December 26th. Here’s one that is somewhat nature related:

Coriander,
It’s a pretty word, isn’t it?
Used to name a benign plant,
With little more than a scent
And a taste to its name

1 Like
105

A completely unsuccessful attempt to translate a poem by famous Bengali Poet Jibanananda Das

Abar Asibo Fire (I will come back again)

I’ll return to Dhansiri’s riverbank one day,
In Bengal’s heart, where memories stay.
Perhaps not as a human, but in disguise,
As a starling or Brahmini kite, soaring in the skies.

Maybe I’ll come back as a morning crow,
In autumn’s harvest fest, with stories to bestow.
I’ll float upon the fog, beneath the jackfruit tree,
Or waddle as a pet duck, with bells on my feet, carefree.
With a young girl’s gentle hands, I’ll spend my days,
Floating on weed-scented waters, in joyous, lazy ways.

I’ll return to love Bengal’s rivers, fields, and shores,
Where the Jalangi River’s waves caress the green, melancholic shores.
Perhaps you’ll spot a buzzard, soaring in the evening breeze,
Or hear an owl’s soft calling, from the Red Cotton tree’s branches with ease.
You might see a child scattering puffed rice, with laughter and glee,
Or a boy steering his sailboat, on Rupsa river’s murky waters, wild and free.
White herons, coming to their nests,swimming through dusk’s colored clouds,
Please find me among them all,
where I’ll be again in Bengal’s heart, where love and memories resound."

4 Likes
106

The Snow Arrives After Long Silence
BY NANCY WILLARD
The snow arrives after long silence
from its high home where nothing leaves
tracks or strains or keeps time.
The sky it fell from, pale as oatmeal,
bears up like sheep before shearing.

The cat at my window watches
amazed. So many feathers and no bird!
All day the snow sets its table
with clean linen, putting its house
in order. The hungry deer walk

on the risen loaves of snow.
You can follow the broken hearts
their hooves punch in its crust.
Night after night the big plows rumble
and bale it like dirty laundry

and haul it to the Hudson.
Now I scan the sky for snow,
and the cool cheek it offers me,
and its body, thinned into petals,
and the still caves where it sleeps.

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