It occurs to me that, in our small group, we live in some very differing landscapes and climates, with representatives in India, Australia, England, the United States and Canada. Each of these countries offers a very different topography, climate, types of trees and vegetation, and a variety of wildlife, with variations even within each country.
Taos, New Mexico stock photo
This week I thought it might be interesting to write about where we live, including specifics of some of these factors, such as the type of seasonal weather each is experiencing right now, so we are transported into the landscape and climate of these places scattered so widely across the planet.
Cheshire, England stock photo
Do you live in a temperate, tropical or dry climate? An urban or rural setting? Do you have bodies of water nearby and, if so, what type: river, lake, ocean? What kinds of trees do you see on your daily walks? Do you have a favourite?
You might, if you wish, like to take note of how the
accelerating climate crisis is impacting extreme weather events where you live
and how it is affecting both human and non-human beings who live there.
Port Alberni, B.C., bear, cooling off in summer
Take us along with you as you walk through your chosen landscape. I am an armchair traveller of many years, and am looking forward to strolling through your ancestral gardens. What makes them beautiful to you?
Australian kangas / Alamy stock photo
Some poems for inspiration:
Landscape
by Mary Oliver
Isn’t it plain the sheets of moss, except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they wanted about
spiritual patience? Isn’t it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing
as though they were the most fragile of flowers?
Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.
Every morning, so far, I’m alive. And now
the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky—as though
all night they had thought of what they would like
their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings.
(Mary Oliver lived much of her life in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the northern tip of Cape Cod.)
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This Land is a Poem
by Joy Harjo
This land is a poem of ochre and burnt sand I could never write, unless paper were the sacrament of sky, and ink the broken line of wild horses staggering the horizon several miles away. Even then, does anything written ever matter to the earth, wind and sky?
(Joy Harjo, current U.S, Poet Laureate, lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.)
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North Slope Borough
by U.S. poet Erika Meitner
My heart is an Alaskan fishing village during whaling season,
which is to say that everyone is down by the thawing sea.
The huts on stilts are empty, and my heart is a harpoon,
a homemade velveteen parka, hood lined with wolverine.
My mouth has no zipper, which helps me remember
how to say O. O I miss home. When I close my eyes,
I see the F train’s twin headlights blooming into the station.
When I close my eyes, its warm wind sweeps hair from my face,
the way my grandmother did with her hands, to see my eyes.
(This poet's work often reflects the urban landscape, and the yearning for one landscape while living in another. She lives in Blacksburg, Virginia.)
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