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What do you appreciate most about nature?
Ask three strangers this same question and I expect you’ll get three very different answers. An artist with her palette full of paints might choose its vibrant colors. A rock climber or a kayaker might favor the physical challenges it presents. Or a teacher might enjoy its function as an outdoor classroom, always open to students willing to learn about its cycles of death and rebirth.
Ask me this question and you’ll get another answer still, because I delight in nature’s constant surprise. From the April snowstorm that froze my sandaled feet (in North Carolina, far from any mountain) to the return of life inside the exclusion zone around Chernobyl, I am often amazed by what nature shows us. And I love that moment when, just as I think the natural order is marching toward a precise conclusion, it veers off into a possibility I didn’t expect.
This ability to lead us down the unexpected path is also one of Elizabeth Barrette’s greatest strengths as a poet.
One such example lies within the poem “Inconsiderate Drivers,” which observes geese heading south for the winter. For a moment they fly in their customary “ordered vees” before transforming into a highway disaster, their “muddled jumbles and jams / worthy of Tokyo.” Yet another shift can be found in “Paratroopers,” where a meadow becomes a battlefield and the dandelions, thistles, and milkweed send soldier-seeds to “storm the grass” and “outwait winter’s siege.” Then just to make us laugh, the poem “Lazybones” pulls our gaze from the flowers blooming in spite of the snow to the last place we’d think to look: Miss Spring’s bedroom, as she punches the snooze alarm for the hundredth time. Like nature itself, this volume is a collection of surprises, dug from the soil of a garden and plucked from the northern winds.
Coincidentally, I discovered Elizabeth’s work for myself through a series of happy accidents. A comment she left in someone else’s web journal enticed me to find her own and my first visit occurred on the same day as one of her “Poetry Fishbowls,” during which she encourages others to give her writing prompts and sponsor the finished results. As prompts and poems appeared throughout the day, I was struck by the distances between them, even when some prompts suggested particular directions. It was as if Elizabeth possessed a compass that could transport her to any destination, no matter what the starting point or how strange the journey. All she had to do was admire the scenery and bring back her notes.
Two years later, I’m less concerned with how Elizabeth’s poetry continues to surprise me. Now I simply look for where her trails are marked and prepare to meet – as much as anyone can – the wondrous unknown.
- Nicole Robertson
April 21, 2010
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From the book:
From Nature’s Patient Hands
The water in Greece is the color
of turquoise, of verdigris,
of bottle glass in August sunlight.
It sends shadows rippling and twisting
in moiré patterns on the sand below.
The cliffs rise above the sea
in slanted layers of yellow and brown,
their tops scraped smooth by the wind.
In sheltered clefts grow the green sprigs
of wild rosemary and oregano.
Long ago, these cliffs and this sea
saw the launching of the long sleek ships,
the pride of Greece. Today, they are just
a vacation place in the lazy summer months.
But they remain the same, indifferent to us.
Before we came, the melissae buzzed
from bloom to bloom with their buckets of honey,
and after we leave, they will still dance
in their palaces of pale gold wax.
Our ruins are busy with their minute industry.
The ants in the soft sand of the beaches
and the scattered gravel of the Parthenon
continue building their hidden cities.
The sea, the cliffs, the plants and insects remain –
only we and our history disappear,
brushed like dust from Nature’s patient hands.
Originally posted 2010-12-02 20:48:35. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
