When I visited a new-to-me branch library about a month ago, I picked up Hannah Fries small book, Being with Trees: Awaken Your Senses to the Wonders of Nature. It has sat in my book basket for several weeks until Friday when I picked it up in search of a poem to share. The cover of the book has the words Poetry, Reflections, and Inspiration. The book is divided into four sections: Breathe, Connect, Heal, and Give Thanks, It's filled with beautiful illustrations.
A favorite poem was opposite a page that explained how Edna St Vincent Milly spent the last half of her life from 1925 to 1950, at Steepletop, her estate in Austerlitz, New York. Isn't Steepletop a wonderful name for an estate?
Here's are lines from Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem that is featured in Being with Trees (p. 161):
And as I looked a quickening gust
Of wind blew up to me and thrust
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath, and with the smell, -
I know not how such things can be! -
I breathed my soul back into me.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
And then I fell down a poetry rabbit hole. It turns out the lines come from her poem, "Renascence" which I must have studied and have long since forgotten in American Literature in college. I not only located the poem, but read an extensive Poem Guide provided on Poetry Foundation. And that my friends, is just one of my excuses for posting two days late.
Ramona, thank you for sharing this poem. I don't recall reading it in my college English classes. I've thought about this line: "I breathed my soul back into me." The action, the descriptions and the word choices are beautifully woven into the long poem. I am home from the hospital and look forward to Our Spiritual Journey conversation. Happy Memorial Day!
ReplyDeleteI can absolutely relate to that sensation of being surrounded by nature and feeling my soul come to life.
ReplyDeleteBetter late than not. Yes, I too have felt nature's beauty taking nature in, whether in an orchard or the seaside. The last two lines of the poem are striking.
ReplyDeletethe above comment is from Janice.
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