Nature Itself

The field asks nothing of the passing eye,

yet lifts its grass beneath the open sky;

the creek, through root and shadow, stone and gleam,

keeps murmuring the old work of a stream.

The oak stands deep in weather, year by year,

and holds its silence when the storms appear;

the pine receives the snow, the rain, the flame,

and wears each season without praise or blame.

In spring, the thawing marsh begins to ring;

the peepers wake and tune the dark of spring.

The fern uncurls, the skunk cabbage breaks through,

and rain makes every buried promise new.

Then summer folds the meadow in its heat;

bees drown in clover, drunk with something sweet.

The dragonfly, a blue and burning thread,

sews light above the pond from head to head.

A fox slips redly by the broken wall;

the hawk hangs high, deliberate over all.

The mouse beneath the goldenrod lies still,

and life moves on by appetite and will.

For nature is not gentle bloom alone,

but thorn and talon, seed and splintered bone;

the rain that feeds the root may tear the ground,

the wind that sings may bring the maple down.

Yet nothing in that dark exchange is vain:

the fallen fruit grows fragrant in the rain;

the mushroom rises where the dead leaves rot,

and green returns to each forsaken spot.

Then autumn comes with fire upon the trees;

the sumac burns, the asters feed the bees.

The acorn strikes the leaves with little sound,

and geese write longing over fading ground.

The maples give their scarlet banners back;

the walnut darkens on the leaf-strewn track.

The forest, stripped of ornament and gold,

stands stern and beautiful against the cold.

Then winter lays its silence on the field;

the pond is locked, the road and pasture sealed.

The cattails, blackened torches in the snow,

stand over waters singing far below.

For under ice the living brook still goes;

beneath the bark, the hidden current flows.

The seed keeps counsel in its frozen room,

and darkness guards the architecture of bloom.

The deer steps lightly where the blue dusk falls;

the owl wakes deep within the cedar walls.

Above the pines, in cold and countless fires,

the stars keep watch on all that breathes, expires.

No sermon need be spoken by the hill;

the lichen writes on stone and then is still.

The raven’s wing, the rain on withered leaves,

say more than all the mind’s bright tongue believes.

To stand among these things is to grow sane:

the heart remembers it is dust and rain,

a warmth, a breath, a hunger, and a name,

brief as a moth and kin to root and flame.

Nature explains no purpose and no plan;

she was not shaped to flatter restless man.

She grows, she withers, shelters, wounds, renews,

and spends the stars like silver on the dews.

The field grows dark; mist gathers by the stream.

The last light leaves the pines as leaves a dream.

Night settles down; the wild world takes no praise,

but turns through silence toward another blaze.