Favorites of Nature Poems from the Dissertation

Bears


This one I’ve never heard
but I remember the old mountain story
about the woman who is tricked
and hands her baby over the fence
to a bear, who she thinks is her husband…
and I have dreams about bears
they change into people and change back
I change into a bear and change back
I sit in a tree and sing to one
until fierceness turns docile
like a puppy
and, god, I miss those mountains
It’s a pain in my throat and the only place
that causes me to cry when I see it and when I don’t.

So we’re all kin and we’ve all married
our kin and we continue to find them,
we continue to look for their twinkling eyes
in the hills of every place.
One may come lumbering out of a cave
give itself shape apart from the trees
and look like me and feel like me
and like the polar bear be the loneliest
--that’s because he hasn’t got any mountains.

Why do I miss it? The thing I’ve never had?
It was a distant backdrop to my childhood dramas
but a visit is a visitation
the place where mist is at dawn
where I fished on the Shenandoah
where morning glories dot even the sun.
Stories of bears reside in my flesh
what is commonplace there
becomes extraordinary elsewhere.

Aunt Hanran may have used a broom
to chase that bear off her back porch,
I’ll invite him in to sit by the fire
dust the snow from his fur
and ask for all the things he knows.
I’ll bid him stay till spring
he may tell me where the treasure is hid
or what enchantment he is in.

I am close in nature and nature
is close inside me. Woods and Mountains
become my house and call me.
If I don’t have you covering me
I dream of bears and an ancient wooden door
and my Daddy calls to tell me mountain lore.



Nature's Dream of Otherworld

for Edwin


Wrap yourself in a blanket
go out on the porch,
to the rocking chair.
The wind has turned cold
gusting through bare woods
tossing purple clouds
into the darkening night.

Rock away,
the yellow cat
peers into your face,
wondering, just wondering
“Is that really you?” he asks.

I know nothing,
I came out here
to let the wind blow through my soul,
to get a taste of purple clouds,
to swing my heart
on the crescent moon,
to glimpse nature's
wintry fresh
dream of Otherworld.


Squeaky Wheels Passing Overhead

Fifty squeaky wheels
roll over my sky-head
sudden dawn at pre-dawn
high above me flying wheels
squeaky-talking-chatter
in pre-wake sleepy
think—Canadian geese!

Why am I awake this moment?
just at this turning over?
in time to be observer?
beholder of the passage?
Holder of sacred portals
their journey and my listening.

I drift again and dream
the geese stop to visit
and stand at the top of stairs
I look up at them
My father, gone five years now,
stands beside me delighting also
--we gaze upward
at our magnificent visitors.

I wake again and see images
of snowy Canada
and the warm coast of Mexico.



Bird in a Tree


A bird singing in a tree
brought to mind
something I’d read
a study on reciprocity,
how bird-song calls
the plants and trees to bloom
and how plants and trees call
the birds to sing their growing song.

The clouds too soak up moisture
from the earth in order to be—
floating around the world
dropping rain at the earth’s request.

So too the sun must need the moon
(because in the night I need to remember)
the moon would be a floating rock
if it weren’t reflecting sun.

I saw a black creek yesterday
reflecting a cloud full of pink light
I needed to see that
for my growing up
It needs me to see it too—
for there is light known
and metaphor is born
when I see the sky
reflected in the earth’s eyes.



Born to the Earth: Newgrange, Ireland and Charlottesville, Virginia


They move all around
glimpsed by feeling
in the greenness of moss
in the otherworld wind
that blows a deep silence
atop an ancient hill.
In the passage to the
womb of the earth
I am being born
this time, as I go in,
not as I come out.
Born to the earth
rather than the air.
This zipping into other
time and space
is easy, yet
I am stunned—
something has just
happened to me.
will I ever fully
grasp what?
The ground sways
back and forth.
it’s not the ground
of the new world.
I will take this
hand-branch of the tree
and what it knows
it will pass onto me—
as the Otherworld wind
blows, the dusk settles
and a farmer and dog
gather in the lambs.
They have been
scattered on the hill of Tara
where ancient kings married
the goddess—the earth—all one.

Writing this in the hills
of Virginia, I look up
and see four little deer
run through the winter woods.

At once, I am here in magic,
and I am there in magic,
as thresholds to
Other worlds
make their appearance
in every place.
Even one tree alongside
a superhighway
can beckon to me,
perhaps this is what
it means to be
born to the earth.



The Eagle and the Snake


Stepping through a thicket
to get a glimpse of the creek
a vision opened
as if it were in
my psyche:

an eagle flies up
to the top of a tall tree
carrying a long snake
in its mouth.

I come to this place
with injury
I leave
knowing all is well
all is available
magic is mine.



Black Angus Memory


Black Angus cattle
stand like gods
amidst the trees
and startle a little person
in their stare
their stance
their breadth.

I’m relieved to be
standing on the back
of this 1939 pick-up truck
with all my brothers.
Holding tight to the cab
we ride over bumpy
unmarked pasture
and there they are.
I tighten my grip.
Nothing could move them.
We’ve come to count you,
but who is counting whom?

My grandfather leans out
the cab window and utters
an uncharacteristic sound
low in the throat:
“N-e-e-e-e-e-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!”
and I see them coming over the hill
a body of great dark beings.
Not daring to get out of the truck

we start to count them

without knowing why.




In my end is my beginning…

T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets


This robe of snow and winter stars,
The devil take it, wear it, too.
It might become his hole of blue.

Wallace Stevens, “Snow and Stars”
in Ideas of Order


Wilderness


Leave your name behind
enter here to seek
that which you wish
find that which
you are not looking for
do not think of intentions
or of boundaries
this is not a place
where in the dark
you can find your way
by touch
this is not familiar.

Yet in this forest
it is quiet
the silence in-between things
my breath forms a cloud
the night sky is loud
with stars and trees
stand tall speaking
with only posture
the sky now shiny black
has begun to drop feathers.
I forgot how snow
makes no sound.

Memories float through my
waiting mind:
(what is it I’ve come here for?
but to allow the cold air
to come in a snowflake pattern
through my mind
heavy with fixity)
in the garage
my brothers and I
will wax the toboggan
the sleds, the skates
find the hockey sticks
tomorrow is full of plans
of nothing, but snow.

Indoors is enemy territory
forced to come into
land of temporary Mom
refuge for numb fingers,
then urgently we must
get back outside.

Once my brothers built igloos
from the world of nothing
came a white entrance
into nothing-ness
where only children could go
so many crammed in there
that it became—something
and lost its play.

Now I feel compelled
to build my fire
dry wood is in my pack
I want to see what will happen
when I mix fire and ice.

Though I’ve built fires before
and watched them until
a chemical change
came about in my brain
and time and safety
made a home in me.

Now I want to see
how fire alters this beauty
a landscape outside me.

It is this deep painful desire
for beauty that drives me.

When the flakes hit the fire
they say “ssssss…”
I watch and the night dances
snow, trees, air, stars, fire
they watch my sudden fluidity.

I laugh as I consider
in snow-less Dallas
how stars and snow
also dance here together:

unintentional pearls.

Deep in the forest
is an enchanted princess
each night she sits
by a water-well
she takes off her mask
of ugliness and her beauty
shines forth like the day.
She weeps tears of pearl
and so unintentionally,
by happenstance,
leaves a trail
for her past
and her future
to find her.




This Grove of Trees


There is a wide circle
I am surrounded by it
it is filled with silence.
Each day is a documentary,
I consider what is growing,
how to make my life sweet,
the slant of morning light,
the complaint of crows.

I will slowly turn moments
turning towards a breeze
suddenly
nothing has changed
but it will.
Love and honor this
for I was born to love
even to disregard blue light
as great engines
slowly, suddenly, pass by
this grove of trees,
shaking the ground,
while I stand still,
knowing, this grove of trees

that I am here knowing
this grove of trees
was once not forgotten.



Mother Moon

Shall I take up this conversation again?
A question from me
that rises to mother moon.
Yet if I cannot believe her
who can I believe?
She speaks of hope
of beauty
of change
in nightly perspective.

“Remember, I reflect,”
she says…
the conversation
doesn’t stop here
it continues
in whoever gazes
who chooses to see
to hope, to reflect…




Snow



Snow again

everything must freeze

be white

have dreams

be night

dazzle the world

with crunch

dance in the kitchen

expect nothing

and everything again

float down feathery

and catch on the grass.





“A Local Habitation and a Name”


To sit in the moonlight
wrapped in a blanket
rocking back and forth.

As the dark grows
I hear many walking
in the woods
I see only shadows
in the pale light
as they walk or
scramble through the
fallen leaves
to be close around.

I hear breathing,
some walk slowly
stopping to consider,
others follow each other
in a mad dash,
all the while
the owl hoots
high up in his overview.

Nocturnal comings
and goings,
dreams while awake,
bathing in cold moonlight
all heals an un-named pain.

Beauty, movement, animal
beings, dream sequences,
happen outside me now.

The dark formless
inner stirrings
take shape
and are given
“a local habitation
and a name.”*




* from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

would you mind

would you mind if I
stop the car here
on top of this little mountain?
I speak to the would-be angry
drivers, but no one is
in the rear view mirror.
I catch my breath
which was captured away
by the purple clouds
scattered across the sky
above the violet blue ridge
mountains in the distance,
misty jewels all along the throat
of the wintry earth.

Recent poems

Sept. 25, 2010

I Follow the Moon

I follow the moon
in the pink twilight
as it moves down
the leafy street.
I follow still
looking for a way,
It still moves.


Oct. 2, 2010
Curious and Rich

When I walk past
the fragrant forest
after heavy rain,
which smells like
the freshest salad
you ever ate,
some vegetation
from Otherworld
that when eaten
makes you feel alive,

then I listen, listen
and there is
nothing, nothing but.

When it is almost dusk
and the horizon is tinged
with the most delicate
hint of lavender,
against it dark
silhouettes of tiny
fruit-tree branches,

I listen, listen
there is nothing, nothing but.

When I pass the small mountain
rising like a god
impressing the night
and the still liquid sky,

I listen, listen
and there is nothing, nothing.

But nothing is something
curious and rich,
and I have heard it.

Some New Poems 2010

2/15/10 I Float, I Fall


Snow falls repeatedly
in a weekly pattern,
covering over.

Clearing away,
small areas
reveal themselves,
then the falling again.

I fell from the stars,
all is foreign,
I am always homesick,
but trying to pay attention,
to why I’m here.

Beauty keeps me
in its spell,
my soul
floats to earth,
and gathers,
mystical white.

It clears a little
and something
is revealed,
something is discovered
underneath.

Somewhere flowers bloom,
the stars twinkle,
I float, I fall.



1/9/10 The Sky is My Monastery, the Forest My Cathedral (this was "given" if you will--but not sure I'll leave in "thee" :)

The sky is my monastery
the forest my cathedral
and so I must
constantly go to church
to seek,
throughout the world
all the places
of sublime beauty,
and like them
must mimic
divine light,
not doing anything
but just be
who I am
along with thee.

Beholding is enough
that we might
support each other
in wordless devotion
hearing the music
of love and beauty
and the life-force
that springs from thee,
to me, and back again.

This is my quest
and how I am free
which delightfully, brings
joy to thee, and
therefore to me.

This is a new time
and I no longer need
to be a sacrifice
labeled a virgin, or a whore,
burned at the stake,
thrown into prison,
or over the wall
of Edingburgh castle
into the North Sea.
That’s over.

I am healed
and not afraid
to be me and free
from religion and politics
and misogyny.
I can heal you too
by just being me.
though to speak it
sounds crazy.

No words then
I will mimic divine light
and just be.
with the forest as cathedral,
and the sky as monastery.



6/20/10 The Earth Rotates, Clouds Pass By


Years go by
and I am still transfixed
by the earth rotating.
From this perspective
it seems the puffy clouds
float by and the planet
is still, yet it’s not.
I am the one moving,
The clouds are moving too.

The fact and the metaphor
still surprise me,
perhaps when I feel dizzy
there is good reason
that I cannot see
at first.
All is motion after all.

Perhaps if I feel
stillness and sameness
boredom with myself
there is movement
that is almost imperceptible.
How could I think
anything is still?



7/18/10 In the Midst of Summer


In the midst of winter
one cannot remember summer
It’s a foreign thing,
so spring dancingly
lets us in.

And in summer it is
usually the same,
but this summer
I do remember
being covered over
with many snows
buried in beauty,
wonder, and fright.
The weather god
let us have it.

In this appearance of heat
sticky, constant, sweat,
there is another existence
like the Celts believed
that other world lives
side by side
easy to step
from one to the other.

In the imagination
the other comes back
in a moment.

Favorites from section called "Love" from chapbook "The Stars Reach Down and Speak Diamonds and Rubies"

Our hands were firmly cemented
With a fast balm, which thence did spring,
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
Our eyes, upon one double string….”The Ecstasy”, John Donne


The Secret Garden


That further dimension
that true love makes
the secret garden
of the matched lovers
the place no one else enters.
What is that mystery?
Bloom and sparkle
the light of the eyes
the mystery of new time
pushing a new curve
into the center of things
the soul that is
the two made one
the one soul
that makes the two
more distinctly who
they are
to then give
the better self again.




Miracle


I am a snow maiden

I have taken on your climate

see, I am to be your bride

has the snow begun to fall?

There is a basket of fruit

ripening on the porch

the hills are lovely

summer must be so glorious

its exuberance simply out

of contrasts. I am happy.

This is mine, all of it

when the snow falls

I have visions, bells ring

I see you and me by miracle

a veil lifted on a green land.





Dancing Princess


I have waited up till very late
the quiet sings to me
ice and snow cushion my defenses
the leaves have frozen in mid-air
a diamond offering.
I will forever go to the dance
wear my shoes out in the underworld
and you are invisible still.
I dare you to bring
that diamond token back
to show my Daddy.
I waited up
with a night full
of conversation
on the tip of my tongue
whispering warmth
pillowed against the cold
once again—you never show yourself.
I put the feast away
carefully covering the pies
lock the door
peeking once more
out at white and shadow
a visitation of winter
to this sunburnt land.
I feel the mist on the window
know the frozen sight
somewhere deep inside
the stars have sent
their sparkle and chill
to my very landscape.
I think of you
on your journey to me
and of the great distance
you’ve had to travel by now.
I wish for you a magic cloak.



Knitting


I’m knitting another row
it’s the same old Penelope story
written in a woven shroud
(aren’t we dying every minute?)
my living starts another unfolding
dreams are made of this
the folding in of another chapter
the knots of unforgetting
each stitch a question
each row a manifestation
each ball of yarn changed.
The story grows and at the end
I hope it will make sense.

I look to see in the morning
if the weaving sticks
if the fairy tale is beginning
is it something I can touch?
Will the story bring the stranger/Other back?
even with all his wild thread?
or is this another unraveling?
the dream gone dark again
caught in my throat
before it has had its chance?



Mid-Winter Spring


I can see your mind
speedily working out equations
to understand and open poetry
to no avail
it has its own mystery
so you come with a gift
in the opening
of mid-winter spring.
I receive your eyes
and my heart is like
a summer bird returning
with a song
it hasn’t sung yet.
Shall I deliver it?
Its sweetness sputters waiting
tossing and turning
in the star-driven night
and the new moon
sits bright and quiet.




You Meet Me Halfway


I’ve followed you down the amber roads
of Africa, as the sun sets
behind tree silhouettes
whatever is cruel, and predatory
your wisdom and beauty will overcome.

You move gently towards me
which surprise my expectations.

In everything which calls for action
you have thought the deed and moved
but in this—the space between us
you meet me halfway to who I am
and anything is possible now—
call me by my first name.

You have no need to kill a lion.

I have no need to tame him.

The dream has awakened again
the day sits dewy on my eyelids
everywhere I leave a trail of amber
soon, very soon, I will chance to meet you
in the world-time, in the mid-day.

Abstract of my dissertation

ABSTRACT

Into the Glamoured Spot:
Numinous Nature, Fairy-Faith, and the Imagining Psyche
by

Linda Ann Suddarth


There are places within nature which are imbued with magic and beauty. This dissertation explores the numinous or sacred within nature which creates such a hold upon the imagination. The images of enchantment from fairy-faith open the realms of nature as a threshold experience, explored through the research of W.Y. Evans-Wentz and Katherine Briggs. The concept of the invisibles in nature as “Other” is investigated through the ideas of Mary Watkins.
When one steps into these enchanted spaces, one may want to spontaneously sing, dance, or remember a story. Such an enchanted experience signals that the invisibles or fairy-folk may be present. The Irish poet W. B. Yeats wrote “…the beautiful [fairies] are not far away when we are walking in pleasant and quiet places.…I will explore every little nook of some poor coppice with almost anxious footsteps, so deep a hold has this imagination upon me” (Mythologies 64).
A relationship between the human and natural orders of being encourages the imagination of both worlds. As Gaston Bachelard argues: “The imagination gives more than things and actions, it invents new life, new spirit; it opens eyes to new types of vision” (On Poetic Imagination and Reverie 16). The poetic imagination provides a way to enter the mythical spheres of nature. The imagining psyche as seen through the lens of alchemy, mysticism, and physics, is explored through the work of W. B. Yeats, Mary Oliver, and William Shakespeare. In these works, the poetic imagination creates stories that give visionary form to the invisibles of nature. This study also investigates the figures of Arthurian legend, Merlin and Vivien in their fairy aspect. Their story of disappearance into the primeval forest provides metaphors for the workings of numinosity within nature, such as the “return to the forest,” and the “sacred marriage,” explored through the thought of Heinrich Zimmer, Mircea Eliade, C. G. Jung, and Marie Louise von Franz.
Finally, an accompanying creative component includes a journal of active/guided/shamanic imagination, a journal focusing on travel to Ireland, and a collection of poems, which, taken together, contribute to the exploration of the numinous qualities of nature.

New poems

Autumn

The falling slant of light
in autumn foretells
winter beauty:
orange, red, and yellow
have images behind them
of blue, white, black, and grey.
But I can only be
where I am,
inbetween things,
in the dancing light
and trees in all
their nuances
of glory.




She Shall Have Culture

My teacher asked me,
and gave me a letter.
I gave the letter to my mother,
who asked my father,
and he made a decision
that would change
my life forever.


I didn’t even know
its meaning
so foreign
was the assignment.
It sat lightly
on my twelve-year-old
shoulders
so engrossed was I
in my dolls,
reading and writing
my first novel,
Women and the West!
I would much rather
he had spent
that money
towards a canopy bed
I so wanted.


He declared:
“She should have
some culture.”
Since landing in the new world
I was the first
of many generations of farmers
to do it.
Reminiscent of some old
social custom
of having the girl
be civilized and exposing her.
With that, my mother
got busy at the sewing machine
to make me a dress.


So for three times,
at three dollars per trip,
I got out of school,
got on a school bus,
and rode into
Washington, D.C.
to the national theater,


into the wonder
of red velvet chairs,
the darkened room,
and watched the lights
come up
on Leonard Bernstein
and the young people’s
orchestra.




The Wind, The Wind, My Dear

The morning is dream-like
with a miraculous sky,
all of a sudden it is cold
the wind blustery.


Christmas can be glimpsed
in the space between branches
where the leaves were,
and where in reverie the soft
and steely sunlight
peeks through flying clouds
of pink and blue.


Winter is upon us, my dear,
and as long as we are warm
and the cat can sit
in the window-seat
looking out with me,
winter can be anticipated
in its beauty and severity.