Environmental Lit: The Doorway Into Thanks, And Silence in Which Another Voice May Speak

We are here to witness the creation and to abet it. –Annie Dillard

In our Environmental Literature course, we studied and mused over works and authors concerned with the natural world. Although these authors had very different ideas about the “nature of nature” and not all would agree with Annie Dillard’s motto of nature writing, they all contributed to the evolution of environmental literature and we certainly learned from all of them.

Environmental Literature can be a cumbersome topic to handle within only a week’s time; Pauline Stevick, our professor hailing from Messiah College in Pennsylvania, wielded works and literary movements and theories spanning 200 years and multiple cultural boundaries. Her survey was an excellent cross-section ranging from Wordsworth to E. E. Cummings to Wendell Berry.

Needless to say, as Pauline guided us along the literary landscape of delight, students discovered some really wonderful poetry. One of the favorites was Robert Frost’s “Dust of Snow”:

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

So often we found our heads covered with snow this week as a phrase, idea, word or poem would strike us in a way to change our moods or save the day, so to speak.

Just a few of these “dust of snow” moments:

Re-reading the first chapters of Genesis and considering the literary features of this Hebraic poem made us appreciate humanity as a part of creation, endowed with the task of cultivating and protecting the rest of it.

We were often startled and delighted by the beautiful and different language used to describe both the natural world itself and the relationship humanity has with it. But this delight was deepened upon understanding the benefit or harm that can come along with using certain metaphors for the environment, whether they are the overly-euphemistic perceptions of Thoreau and the Transcendentalists or the bare-bones indifference or even antagonizing character of nature according to Jack London.

For a while, one night in our cozy upstairs classroom with the fire glowing, we simply studied a poem impromptu that Pauline observed written on a chalkboard in the Convent. Even for those who were wary of poetry, Mary Oliver’s “Prayer” drew us in and made us rediscover the beauty in simplicity. This poem was a doorway into thanksgiving for many of us.

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak