Poets ground us, give us place
The Earth
Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon
the remembered earth, I believe. He ought to give himself up
to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from
as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon
it.
He ought to imagine that he touches it with his hands at every season and listens to the sounds that are made upon
it. He ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest
motions of the wind. He ought to recollect the glare of noon and
all the colors of the dawn and dusk.
For we are held by more than the force of gravity to the earth.
It is the entity from which we are sprung, and that into which
we are dissolved in time. The blood of the whole human race
is invested in it. We are moored there, rooted as surely, as
deeply as are the ancient redwoods and bristlecones.
Momaday speaks of the earth. We seem so disconnected from it, indoors as we are, especially in the U.S. We need to get out more. There, in a landscape. We need to understand more deeply what place is, the textures of place, the lure of the local. Keith Basso was right: wisdom sits in places.
Happy Earth Day.
[image of sunset from space, from here]
