In the late Brian Doyle’s final essay collection, One Long River of Song, there’s an essay titled “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever”. And it is a great essay, full of things that a great nature essay should include. And that title makes a good launch pad for a new bit of writing, and it’s one of our prompts for February in Writing the Wild. And since Brian Doyle already wrote the great nature essay ever, I shall offer you…..
The Greatest Nature Poem Ever
..starts with bold statements, declarations
of appreciative love for wildness of all sorts—
biting ants & jumping spiders
beach grass & bent twigs
shifting sand & falling raindrops,
(these declarations can be more subtle than bold, really, it can go either way)
anyone willing to acknowledge their place
in that wild family of things, and let’s not forget
a robust description of wind dancing through ripples on still waters
or the way a full moon casts shadows of illumination on snowcapped hills
along with enough left unsaid to keep imagination alive in wonder—
that love, however it presents itself, paves the way,
but not like a road through woods—
more like a trickle of water molding rock over eons, a steady presence
making itself known, persistent in its unrelenting reach, its unwavering way
of continuing to be, year
after year
after year,
reminding everything
that everything is a part
of nature’s universal heart.
It keeps going after that, becoming more itself
every time you, and you, and you, too, take that love
(bold or not)
and make it your own—because you, too
are an essential part of the greatest nature poem ever.
Brian Doyle’s writing 😍