The Wilderness Between

I plant it

as if it were a piece of my mother

I really enjoyed reading this packet and book of nature themed poetry. It was interesting to me the ways in which the authors approached the subjects. Just as in essays, they could rant, reminisce of their own memories in nature, connect their personal experiences with nature, reflect on the beauty and complexity they see around them. However, I still enjoyed the same sort of tactic that I like in essays: relating nature back to the self/ personal, meaningful experiences.

I think some of the best examples of this were in The Journals of Scheherazade. Particularly the one poem, “No Tomatoes”, is so tender and heart-felt. The details of the speaker’s care of the tomatoes, her failure to stimulate either the plants or her marriage. It is so heart-breaking. The image of “masturbating/ each flower with a Q-tip” or “walking around at night like a thief/ with a flashlight”. And I’m completely swept by the admission at the end:

But there is nothing

like desire here, nothing

like a warm tomato picked almost

overripe off the vine, so red

you could cry, so full of juice

and flavor that salt and pepper

seem heresy.

No, there are no tomatoes here, no one to tell

me why, and I don’t know

what kind of interference

it will take

to want each other again.

The poem starts with the tomato plants, comes to the couple, then back to the tomatoes, and the last line reveals the couple again. Yet it is very sneaky, seeming seamless. The last line especially. “Each other”

I think these poems really made me think again about how we as humans relate to the world, and some of these poems even dealt with that directly. Like “For A Coming Extinction,” which was also one of my favorites. It speaks with bitterness and sarcasm about how we are destroying the world, wiping out whole species. And it is so moving. Actually, when I say that I mostly mean the first half. I wish the poem had ended at that first page, after two stanzas. It loses its momentum after that I think.

And “Walk in Tick Season” made me almost even like ticks. I think this is a good example of a poem that celebrates nature, but doesn’t get too purple or glittery. An example of a poem that fails is “A Blessing”. I really dislike this poem. I had seen it before in a beginning poetry class and it made me want to gag. Bleh.

I don’t like “A Blessing” because first of all, it’s a poem about ponies with eyes that “darken with kindness”. The ponies themselves “can hardly contain their happiness” and “love each other”. It’s like My Little Ponies with rainbows and sunshine everywhere. I will admit to a good detail: “And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear/ That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.” This moment is so sensual.

The line that eludes me in this poem that I dislike so much is “There is no loneliness like theirs.” It is put right after telling us that they love each other. It is simply stated. It is a quiet moment that I want to hold on to and explore. I don’t know what he means, nor does he try to explain or dwell here. Instead, he moves on to eating grass contentedly. Everything so happy and god damned content again. I don’t like it. I don’t trust it.

If nature poems have taught me anything, it’s to mistrust that front of happiness and beauty. Hummingbirds and tomatoes are sex. Wisteria is death. A tick, a vulture, and torn and mutilated fish are beautiful.