Nature

Observing the beauty of nature, featuring four poems by Catherine Young, Deborah Casillas, Robert Tremmel and J. I. Kleinberg.

Transcript

It’s July, and plant and animal life are just going crazy. On this episode of Burning Bright, four poems about nature.

Catherine Young worked as a national park ranger, a naturalist, and a farmer. She said, “Now, I celebrate the broad landscape of relationships that comprise my own life. I see stone as fluid over the long run, and I am fascinated by the colors and patterns insects can see and perceive which we cannot. For me, poetry is how I imagine the honeybee finds its way in, guided by coded grace.” Catherine said her poem “Panoramic” was sparked by a line in Sharon Bryan’s poem, “Foreseeing,” that says middle age refers to landscape more than time.

From this view, this precious age
as landscape seen from an eagle’s lair,
the lay of life is good, fulfilled.
Every heartbeat,
each purr the ears
have known, every
day whose light is scattered
by clouds of every color
is a goblet brim-full
of rainbow, complemented
with sparks and darkness both.
In the course of eons
black coal transforms, hardens
to diamond reflecting each hue,
tint and tone; the palette brings
multifaceted vision.
Beyond this moment,
this life, I wish to see

how bees follow ley lines
to the center, ovary deep,
then out again winging,
warmed by solar rays
to follow paths scented
with others’ passings
in the buzz-filled air.

Catherine Young’s poem “Panoramic” from Passager Issue 66.

Deborah Casillas spent some time in Tepoztlan, Mexico and said she saw more deeply every time she walked the cobbled streets, sat in open cafes, and watched the village life pass by. Here’s her poem “Detail.”

This time I swear I’ll touch everything I want
stroke oranges clustered on a branch across the lawn
press bougainvillea’s papery bracts against my cheek
caress the wing-silk of a twittering unseen bird
distinguish flight feathers
savor the stiffness of every shaft.
I’ll run my fingers across
a rough volcanic wall
know the pocked remnant of explosion
embedded in mud and sand and ash.
I’ll dip my hand in dark water’s stillness
reach for the iridescent shiver of a koi
walk cautiously on cobbled streets
feel step by step how each stone’s bulge
curves the bottom of my soles.
I’ll grasp sounds beyond the range my ears detect –
cat’s tongue lapping in the pond
paper lanterns tinsel-strung
crinkling in the breeze
a hummingbird’s blurred dive and whir –
all the flowering singing world
the swaths of light sun draws across each day.

From Passager Issue 69, “Detail” by Deborah Casillas

Robert Tremmel said his poem “Landscape” was inspired by a passage from Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind about the impossibility, the utter futility, of trying to control others. He said the poem’s also about the quiet wisdom of cattle. 

In the chaos
of earth and sky
the wandering steer
of the empty field
is the only constant.

Each morning at dawn
the steer orients
each leaf of grass
and frazzled flower, first
to itself and then
to the sun, wind and each
evening locates
the exact spot the moon
will rise and the north star
wheel the myriad seeds of light

and even though
it is popular these days
to believe the steer is God
the fence posts reveal
nothing, and the barbed
wire decorated
with tufts of hair and tiny
points of dried blood
sings only of itself
and only when the wind blows.

Robert Tremmel’s poem “Landscape” from the Winter ’25 issue of Passager.  

Sometimes, nature calls attention to itself; other times, just the opposite. J. I. Kleinberg said that ever since she was a child, she wanted to be invisible. She said, “When others wanted to fly, or to be giants, or to live forever, I wanted to be able to vanish from sight yet remain in the world.” Here’s her poem “To Be Unseen.”

The urge to invisibility began early,
before words, curled deep into shadows
until hidden became habit. To be small
and unseen, silent, unnoticed in the way

of fawn and leveret, of pale daytime
moon. To understand the flattening
that allows the wind to pass over,
held breath undetected by the wolf.

But the fawn flicks its ear, the moon
fattens, the shadows fade, the kitten
mews. Some acute angle of light
picks out silhouette, nose twitch,

rib-cage rise and fall of sleep.
The rabbit stands motionless,
black liquid eye seeing but still,
grass spiking from its mouth mid-chew,

muscles coiled, sensing the cost
of being seen. The way shadow
can turn from refuge to peril,
tenderness to talon, soothe to slap.

The way a moment of inattention
cannot be undone.

From Passager’s 2024 Poetry Contest Issue, “To Be Unseen,” J. I. Kleinberg.

To subscribe to, donate to, or learn more about Passager and its commitment to older writers, visit passagerbooks.com. 

Passager offers a 25% discount on the books and journal issues featured here on Burning Bright. Visit our website to see what's on sale this week.

For Mary, Christine, Rosanne, and the rest of the Passager staff, I’m Jon Shorr.