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Bennington Lake in the snow, Walla Walla Wash. ©
Diane B. Reed
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White Eyes
by Mary Oliver
In winter
all the singing is in
the tops of the trees
where the wind-bird
with its white eyes
shoves and pushes
among the branches.
Like any of us
he wants to go to sleep,
but he's restless—
he has an idea,
and slowly it unfolds
from under his beating wings
as long as he stays awake.
But his big, round music, after all,
is too breathy to last.
So, it's over.
In the pine-crown
he makes his nest,
he's done all he can.
I don't know the name of this bird,
I only imagine his glittering beak
tucked in a white wing
while the clouds—
which he has summoned
from the north—
which he has taught
to be mild, and silent—
thicken, and begin to fall
into the world below
like stars, or the feathers
of some unimaginable bird
that loves us,
that is asleep now, and silent—
that has turned itself
into snow.
Thanks, Diane, for these two poems. I knew the one by Frost but not the one by Mary Oliver. I wonder how long ago primitive human beings learned to personify the wind? I remember lying on the sofa, looking out the sunroom window in Boise one day, when it suddenly occurred to me, The wind doesn't know what it's doing, and the trees don't know what's being done to them! Though I encountered the term "pathetic fallacy" (Ruskin's, I believe) in high school, it had taken all these years for the fact to sink in that Nature (except for the animals, of course) is in fact indifferent.
ReplyDeleteNow that I know this & we are living above a carport in Tacoma, where we are more exposed to the wind than neighbors down below, I find I'm more frightened by the wind than I used to be. I have to remind myself that the wind is without malice--even when it knocks down the Xmas tree on our deck that we had erected in what we tho't was a sheltered corner. "Just one of the those things"--like Hurricane Sandy.