Naming things is always implicitly categorizing and therefore collecting them, attempting to own them; and because man is a highly acquisitive creature, brainwashed by most modern societies into believing that the act of acquisition is more enjoyable than the fact of having acquired, that getting beats having got, mere names and the objects they are tied to soon become stale. . . But we are far better at seeing the immediate advantages of such gains in knowledge of the exterior world than at assessing the cost of them.  The particular cost of understanding the mechanism of nature, of having so successfully itemized and pigeon-holed it, lies most of all in the ordinary person’s perception of it, in his or her ability to live with and care for it–and not see it as challenge, defiance, enemy.

In fact, Fowles beautifully argues that we will truly conserve nature when we stop evaluating it for its purpose.  Learning about nature can feel like a discourse rather than an experience.  Our interaction is too heavily weighted to knowledge at the sacrifice of understanding.  Even nature films can be a disservice because the wonder of wild places is muted by knowledge divorced from experience.  Fowles yearns for the eighteenth century approach of viewing “nature as a mirror for philosophers, as an evoker of emotion, as a pleasure, a poem.”  Nature that is experienced not just mentally but as an “entire human being.”

Fowles finds a similar parrallel in art.  He describes the artist’s self-expression and self-discovery as the deepest benefit of art.  Yet, as with nature, art is parcelled, labeled, and analysized in a vocabulary similar to science.  He sees the paradox of this “knowing-naming technique” being applied to a non-scientific object that even the artist (the actual creator) would find difficult to articulate.

Fowles attributes his writing process to the hours of solitary exploration meandering in the local woods.  His story development doesn’t evolve from an clearly defined outline, but a messy wandering along a narrative.  One topic that kept reoccurring in my mind as I read the essay was fear, as I envisioned myself ambling through a wood I felt vulnerable.  Fowles delineates the history of the danger myth, much of which has to do with a need to control society and associating wilderness with a wild nature.  He advocates turning that on its head, that the way to save nature is stop viewing it as detached from ourselves, to see it as interwoven in our lives as part of the human existence.

Fowles argues that the meaningful human experiences with nature and art are ultimately indescribable.  Nevertheless, he ends the essay relaying an experience in an old growth forest, Wistman’s Wood.  Fowles writing was beautiful as he painted the trees and his walk, I felt he walked into another magical world.  Almost beyond words, Fowles gave me a glimpse of the majesty and wonder of his experience.

Fowles essay doesn’t state facts or figures, it creates a love of and desire to experience nature far beyond trail descriptions and bird lists.  Reading The Tree is a wonderful way to commemorate Earth Day.

The Green Books Campaign

This review is part of the Green Books campaign.Today 200 bloggers take a stand to support books printed in an eco-friendly manner by simultaneously publishing reviews of 200 books printed on recycled or FSC-certified paper. By turning a spotlight on books printed using eco- friendly paper, we hope to raise the awareness of book buyers and encourage everyone to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books.

The campaign is organized for the second time by Eco-Libris, a green company working to make reading more sustainable. We invite you to join the discussion on “green” books and support books printed in an eco-friendly manner! A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website.

Season of Suffering-Coming of Age in Occupied France by Nicole H. Taflinger

Since this is Green Book Campaign Day, it’s appropriate to note that Washington State University Press published Season of Suffering on pH neutral, acid-free paper.  Taflinger’s memoir is perfect for a university press because it is more a memory document than a contemporary juicy tell-all.  It reads like a transcribed interview without the questions.  I picked this book because I have thought repeatedly about Nemirovsky’s telling of the German occupation of France in Suite Francaise.  Season of Suffering would be the type of book Nemirovsky, or any other author, could use as source material for a novel.

While there isn’t a story arc in the book apart from the dramatic historic events, Taflinger’s life experience is important.  Taflinger’s family wasn’t Jewish or bombed, it was an ordinary French Catholic family.  What was life like for ordinary non-Jewish French citizens?  Was there enough food?  Who was brave and who were collaborators?  (This was a question that frequently wasn’t answered until after the war.)  What did the citizens of Nancy know of the world outside their town?  Taflinger described a life of little food where electricity, coal, wood were all scarce and unreliable.

I found the period right after the occupation interesting.  Her father was a POW the entire war and the years of listening to German propaganda ruined him.  He returned more pro-German than pro-American or  Allied forces.  Despite being sent to a farm as slave labor for years, he walked home refusing all offers of assistance from American officers.  He believed his wife and child had an enjoyable life with German boyfriends while he was gone.  American readers have an awareness of PTSD and brainwashing from our own soldiers returning home from our current wars, this was a view of the WWII European experience. Reading Taflinger’s worry over her father’s life during the entire war, then the joy in seeing him alive, immediately followed by the shock of who he became was a heartbreaking aspect of the book.

Taflinger married an American officer, the first pilot to land in Nancy, a scene she describes vividly even including the size of his feet.  She relayed the populations mixed feelings about the Americans.  They were certainly heroic liberators initially greeted with hugs and kisses, but they also were dangerous.  She said no woman ever feared being raped by the German soldiers, but women could not safely walk alone while the Americans were in town, incidents of rape and overall bad behavior were too common.

Season of Suffering documents an important aspect of German occupation that will be useful for all of us who only experience it through history and novels.

Interested in reading Season of Suffering yourself?  Leave a comment with your e-mail by Sunday, November 28 at 11PM and I’ll pick one winner.

10 Activities for the Green Reader

Want to incorporate your green lifestyle with your reading habits?  Eco-Libris has 10 suggestions:

1. Check the reviews of books on the campaign’s list that look interesting to you and add your comments to their reviews.
2. Tweet the campaign (you can also follow it on twitter).
3. Post it in your Facebook status update and join the conversation on the campaign’s Facebook page.
4. Learn more about the green agenda of some of the participating publishers on Eco-Libris blog.
5. Update your green and lit LinkedIn groups about the campaign.
6. Find a book on the campaign’s list that you already read and loved? Write a review on Amazon mentioning the green aspect of the book.
7. Post it on literary websites and social networks, like BookMooch,Goodreads, LibraryThing, BookRabbit and others.
8. Check out the unique search feature of Indigo Books & Music that enables you to identify books that are printed on recycled or FSC-certified paper.
9. Learn more why it is important to print books on eco-friendly paper by visiting the campaign’s resources page
10. See a book on the campaign’s list that you would like to read? Buy it for yourself or as a green gift to someone you care about. You’re also invited to look for it on your local library!

I totally forgot to pose the family for our Earth Day cards.  Guess we won’t be sending them this year.

Actually, in all seriousness, one of the reasons I don’t send holiday cards is the wastefulness of the paper involved.  A lot of people I know are going paperless with their cards and the online options are getting fancier and classier.  There’s an Earth Day tip right there!

Kim thinks I’m relatively conscientious about this stuff because I compost.  It’s so easy to impress her.  (I will say that there’s a disgusting aspect to composting that does test your commitment).  I’m happy to report that our recycling waste now far outpaces our regular waste, and between that and the composting, we’ve definitely cut down on icky bags of goo going out to the trash can.

And of course I made a vow to be a vegetarian this year (and maybe on into the future) for strictly environmental reasons.  If you’re a faithful reader of this blog, you’ll remember that I “went” vegetarian on New Year’s Day, which makes it roughly four months now since I’ve eaten meat or fowl.

(Okay, confession time: I had a few mouthfuls of chicken at a literary festival where I had JUST spoken and was sitting back down, still shaking from having been up in front of hundreds of people, and found lunch waiting on the table in front of me.  Without thinking, I had devoured a bite or two of chicken salad before realizing what I was doing.  I cried out, “Oh, no!  I just ate chicken and I’m a vegetarian!” which raised some skeptical eyebrows among my tablemates, since most vegetarians know not to eat chicken. Also: once I nibbled on my daughter’s leftover pizza and she pointed out to me it was barbecue chicken pizza.)

Overall, though, I’ve found it surprisingly easy to stay the course, even when we were traveling all over the place for spring break.  Of course, I made it easy on myself: I’m not a vegan, so I eat eggs and dairy–can’t imagine doing this without cheese–and I also eat fish which pretty much solves the “what do I get at a nice restaurant” problem.  I try to focus on types of fish that are environmentally sound, like anchovies, sardines, and tilapia, but when I branch out from those, I can’t always remember which ones are best, so I may have made some mistakes in that area.  (I should carry one of those lists around–I know you can get them online–that tell you which fish you shouldn’t order because they’re being overfished or are toxic or are caught in ways that harm other species.)

Anyway, the point is: I’ve had no problem sticking to this diet when it comes to what I eat, but since I’m happy eating crackers and cheese for dinner with a glass of wine and a chocolate cake chaser, that’s no surprise.  What’s significantly harder is cooking healthful meals for the family.  My husband and two older boys all are eating meat freely (and they also all have to eat gluten free which adds another complicating factor but I won’t bore you with that).  My daughter says she’ll eat chicken but nothing else (not sure why she won’t allow turkey in there, but she won’t.)  And my youngest son is trying very very hard to be a vegetarian although sometimes the flesh is weak . . . and delicious.  Because of him, I’m reluctant to cook meat or chicken–it would be nice to make something we can all eat together.

Of course, I could mix (rice) pasta with cheese every night, sprinkle bread crumbs and butter on top, and bake it in the oven until it’s crunchy on top and gooey in the middle and everyone would be happy.  How HEALTHY they’d be is more of an issue.  I do that often enough, but there’s probably a limit to how often we should eat that.

That’s where the Moosewood cookbooks come in.  I suspect that anyone in this country who’s ever tried to be a vegetarian, even briefly, has spent some time with a Moosewood cookbook.  For those living on another planet, Moosewood is a vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, New York, that was founded in 1973.  I know that the first and original Moosewood Cookbook was published before 1983 or so (it was actually 1977–I just checked) because my college roommate discovered it first and I learned about it from her.  It’s a friendly, jaunty cookbook (hand-lettered by the author and then-restaurant-owner Mollie Katzen), and everything in it is delicious.  And smothered in cheese and cream.  The desserts are awesome too.  There’s a poppy seed coffee cake in there that I still dream about but never make in my current life because none of my kids would go near a cake that had SEEDS in it.

Anyway, since that brilliant early cookbook–my own copy is missing the cover and the pages are falling apart from overuse–the Moosewood Collective has published a bunch of other good vegetarian cookbooks, some of which include fish, some of which don’t, and some of which are dedicated to a lower fat diet.  I have most of them and they’re my “go-to” books when the organic vegetable delivery company I use has dropped off a ton of kale and I don’t know what to do with it.  For pure entertainment, I recommend Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant which has different members of the collective exploring their ethnic roots by creating vegetarian versions of the foods their families have made for centuries. It’s fascinating and inspiring.

So thank you, Moosewood Collective, for always being there for me as I try to make meals that will we can all eat without compromising our health or protein levels.

I have eight more months to go and then I’ll decide whether this is a permanent life change or not.  Meanwhile: turn out your lights when you’re not in a room, close or turn off your computer when you’re not using it, recycle anything you can, avoid using plastic wrap and tin foil, don’t drive if you can walk, and try to eat grass-fed beef if you have to eat beef at all.

Got that?  Lecture is over.  As you were, people.

We’ve talked about the used book quandary – they’re better for the environment because a book is being reused, but not so good for the author who doesn’t get a cut of that transaction.  Claire is an author.  Eco-Libris provides the answer, buy a tree for every book you read to balance out the paper used to manufacture the book.  Eco-Libris also works with publishers to promote the sustainable production of books.  Now, they are combing the two and adding an extra incentive for readers to participate:

• Customers who balance out 25 books at Eco-Libris will receive a $10 gift card for Strand Bookstore in New York City (one of the world’s best independent bookstores). These cards are good for any in-store or online purchases and they never expire.
• For customers who will balance out 50 books, Eco-Libris will send a gift - a choice of “green” book, printed on recycled or FSC-certified paper. Customers will be offered to choose from a list of 5-6 books that will be changing occasionally.  The books are from last November’s green campaign; we loved our copy of From Green to Gold by Harold Enrico.
• Customers who will balance 100 books will receive a$25 gift card for BookSwim, a Netflix-style book rental library service, lending you paperbacks, hardcovers and college textbooks.

Help the environment and get rewarded for it, what could be better?

Why are some cities vibrant, visually dynamic, and filled with people on the move and engaged with each other, while other cities lack many of these characteristics? What makes one section of New York a fantastic place to walk around, but other areas of the City appear unfriendly or menacing? Is it a matter of location and infrastructure or is it the result of city planning?

I always thought that city planners went to school and learned their craft attending lectures, and then on the job by sitting at their desks and analyzing plans. Maybe some do. William H. Whyte’s book argues that in order to make good planning decisions, the types of decisions that will positively impact the way in which people live in their cities, planners must go out onto the streets and understand the raw data of how people interact in public spaces. City describes how Whyte’s team studied interactions on city streets and translated this information into discernible patterns. They set up a number of cameras in different locations on a street and recorded the day-to-day interactions. Whyte dissected how people traveled the streets, where they visited, how they interacted with each other and in conjunction with the street’s infrastructure (bus stops, buildings, window ledges, etc.). Whyte drew conclusions about what makes a street work and how cities can improve the population’s experience.  One of my clients, who worked on the development of retail stores for the Walt Disney Company, told me that Disney studied many of these elements when deciding where to locate their stores. He recalled being quizzed by Michael Eisner, the then-CEO of Disney, on very specific details regarding pedestrian patterns and how the street traffic worked before Disney decided on the location of a new stand-alone retail store.

Some of Whyte’s observations are readily apparent. If a city wants more street level pedestrian traffic, make sure that the retail stores have entrances and windows on the street, and not large expanses of blank or solid walls. Other observations are more nuanced, he cautions against diverting pedestrian traffic above street level on to raised walkways or into promenades.

Currently, the downtown area in Los Angeles has been undergoing a renaissance over the last few years. City leaders approved the renovations of buildings on Broadway and Spring Street, in Little Tokyo, and other adjacent areas. The goal is to get the residents out of their cars and walking, shopping, eating and interacting on the streets.  Whyte’s message is that we need to get granular in our understanding. Strings of big box stores with acres of parking do not promote the creation of healthy urban areas, but isolated moments of driving, parking, shopping and more driving. In a time that many people are at least thinking about reducing their individual “carbon footprints,” we need our cities to successfully promote the development and use of interesting city centers where the streets are designed to promote healthy interactions on a pedestrian-based scale.  City shows us that the best way to do that is to analyze what is happening on the street level.

Kim asked me if I knew any good books to read about the environment and what we can do to help stall global warming, so I instantly went into research mode . . . which means I sent an email to my brother who’s a biology teacher.  He recommended a couple of books and then suggested I get in touch with an old friend of ours, Dan Perlman, who is now a professor of biology and environmental studies at Brandeis.   Maybe that should be capitalized?  Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies?  Either way, you have to admit: the guy’s qualified to recommend books.  Hell, he’s qualified to lead the talks in Copenhagen.

Before I list the books he and my brother both recommended, I have to mention that I asked Dan if he had a bookstore to recommend in his neck of the woods.  His pick?  The New England Mobile Book Fair which, truly faithful readers will remember, was one of the very first Indies I wrote about on this blog.  Not as huge a coincidence as you might think, since Dan and I grew up a couple of miles away from each other.   Anyway, it’s reassuring: New England Mobile Book Fair is as good as I remember.

Now on to books about the environment.  Dan’s recommendations include:

Our Choice by Al Gore. You’ve heard of this guy, right?  Just try to get through his book without asking yourself how different the world would be today if he had been president.

Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity by Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein.

Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold.  Dan writes: “60 years since it was published, and I still say, ‘Why haven’t we figured that out yet?’ whenever I read it.”

My brother Ted Scovell (a high school biology teacher who’s also on the faculty of the Rockefeller Institute) recommends:

Biodiversity: Exploring Values and Priorities in Conservation by Dan L. Perlman and Glenn Adelson

Blackwell.  Scholarly . . . and the author’s name rings a bell.

Practical Ecology for Planners, Developers, and Citizens by Dan L. Perlman and Jeffrey Milder.

No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process by Colin Beavan.  This is probably the closest thing to a “fun read” on this list.  Ted just read it and said he liked it.

Ted also said people should read anything–and probably everything–by Bill McKibben or E.O. Wilson.  They’re both passionate environmentalists and great writers. The End of Nature is probably McKibben’s best known book, but he has several others.

In scrolling through his titles and their descriptions, I thought E.O. Wilson’s The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth sounded just right for to recommend on this blog: Publisher’s Weekly wrote, “With his usual eloquence, patience and humor, Wilson, our modern-day Thoreau, adds his thoughts to the ongoing conversation between science and religion. Couched in the form of letters to a Southern Baptist pastor, the Pulitzer Prize–winning entomologist pleads for the salvation of biodiversity, arguing that both secular humanists like himself and believers in God acknowledge the glory of nature and can work together to save it.”

So there you go: no more excuses to say, “I just don’t understand why people are worried about global warming.  I LIKE warm weather.”  Let’s hope the politicians in Copenhagen have made the effort to read some of these books.

Oh, and I wanted to give a shout out to Professor Perlman’s website EcoLibrary which is a source for free educational materials on ecology, conservation and the environment.   You can download tons of useful photos and information about the glorious world around us.  I recommend it for anyone: it’s fun to click through all the photos, especially the panoramas.  They’re unbelievably beautiful and if you actually still know anyone who doesn’t care whether or not we preserve the world around us . . . well, click through a few of these pages and you should be able to open even the most stubborn eyes.

Designed by Susan Newman

GIVEAWAY OF AL GORE’S NEW BOOK AND FROM GREEN TO GOLD DESCRIBED IN THE LAST PARAGRAPH!

We’re joining Eco-Libris and 99 other book bloggers in reviewing 100 books that were published in an eco-friendly manner.  Eco-Libris organized this event (see our post about Eco-Libris and Kim’s interview on their blog) to highlight both the need for and availability of books printed on recycled paper or FSC-certified paper.  “Although there’s so much hype around e-books, books printed on paper dominate the book market, and we want them to be as environmentally sound as possible ,” explains Raz Godelnik, co-founder and CEO of Eco-Libris. “Very few books are currently printed responsibly and we hope this initiative will bring more exposure to “green” books. Through this campaign we want to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books.”

We are so happy to join today’s blogging event.  Since I am trying to read more poetry, I decided to chose From Green to Gold by Harold Enrico as our review book.  This poetry collection is not only printed in a green manner, the poems themselves evoke an awareness of the beauty of nature and life.   I experienced a sense of melancholy and an awareness of the beauty of every moment as I read the poems.  

The theme of the time passing repeatedly occurs:  in the appropriately named “Time,” time is ”the mongrel bitch, limping along on three legs . . . She holds a bleeding forepaw tightly against her chest and whimpers from time to time.”   Even more poignant for me was “Marston-Bigot, Somerset” which describes the antics of WWII soldiers on New Years Eve at a temporary encampment juxtaposed with the animals (badger, mole) that will continually be present in an ongoing cycle of life.  

Several poems refer to aging, another aspect of time.  My favorite is ”Kontrapunkt” with the repeating lines “I crave another body.  This one will never do.”  References to autumn and winter as stand ins for aging abound in the new poems (some are selected from previous collections).  One of my favorites, “Midsummer Past,” felt like a description of a reprieve in the midst of life, while ”Winter” with “Love has lost its luster.  The rose will not bloom again this year” harkened to an end of life period.

The bird images struck me.  I know certain types of birds have representative meanings, but I don’t know what they are and I don’t feel like I lost anything in the poem by my ignorance.  It seemed clear that that the hawk repeatedly represented death or an ending.  I especially enjoyed “Taymuusya, Rock Wren” which starts with a perky wren who sings all morning long “until I am sick of hearing it.  The same old tune and worn-out words.”  A hawk threatens, then a snake, and the perky bird notices.  The poet asks

What did you hear?
The dry sound of rattling on the rocks,
a sound beyond sound,
it chilled  me to the bones.

Then nothing.  No more sound,
not even beyond sound.
Beyond stillness.
Only the imperceptible hiss
of the rising wind
as the snake slivered off.

I loved this poem.  I enjoyed the wonderment of nature combined with the confession that the bird song we’re supposed to love can be annoying.  It intrigues me that I”m not sure if the poet wanted the bird to survive or not.

From Green to Goldis a collection of poems that prompted images of beauty and caused me to think about nature, art, war and aging.  It’s eco-friendly printing only lives out the underlying message of the collection, that our world and lives are wondrous.

In honor of the Green Books Campaign, we’re giving away a copy of From Green to Gold by Harold Enrico AND a copy of Our Choice by Al Gore, his latest thoughts on helping our environment.  To qualify to win either book, leave a comment with what you think is the easiest thing to do to lessen your carbon footprint.  We’ll decide both winners using random.org on Saturday, November 14th.

Few things catch my eye as quickly as a book list.  First, it’s a quick way to learn about new books, no long review of the book, just a snapshot.  Second, certain types of lists test my reading.  How many books on the greatest works of the 20th century/all time/American literature, etc. have I read?  I like the lists where I’ve read many of the books, I feel affirmed.

When this week’s Newsweek arrived I raised my eyebrows.  First, the cover isn’t Michael Jackson (and with all respect to his family and fans, I was relieved), although the newstand version has his picture, the subscriber one does not.  The cover is a picture of someone reading, a book (in paper), and the feature article is “What to Read Now.”  Not summer reading list, not the best whatever list, but what to read to understand our world better today.  50 books. 

First, a quick overview of the list, then the calculation.  Of the 50 books, I’ve read six, so I’m over the 10% mark, a mark only good as an interest rate on a savings account.  I tried adding in the books on the list that I own and that I have seen my Mom or Leslie reading.  It didn’t help too much. 

The list is designed to help us understand our current world and the first book is The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope, written in 1875, that would be 134 years ago.   Actually, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard that book referenced, it’s about a financial and moral crisis in England and has a character that people have identified as Madoff.  If only more people read their classics. . .

The list is a combination of fiction, politics, history, sociology, psychology, religion, environmental, and science.   The topics chosen are interesting.  A couple of books on terrorism, of course, but also the roots of British soccer violence.  The environment is represented by Faulkner’s The Bear and Berry’s ode to the family farm in The Unsettling of America.  Biographies include J. Robert Oppenheimer (American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin F. Sherwin), Whittaker Chambers by Sam Tanenhaus as one of the founders of the modern right, and Winchell by Neal Gabler as the original Rush Limbaugh.  Race, war and film are covered also. 

It’s an interesting concept, thinking of books that help understand the world overall.  Which ones are you tempted to read?  Which ones would you choose?  I’m going to revise my list for the World Citizen Challenge with this in hand to broaden my viewpoint.

We’re not the only ones who want to hear your viewpoint on the books selected and your suggestions for other books, over at My Friend Amy there’s the opportunity to pick one of the books from the list to read and then discuss, join her conversation also.

FYI, Newsweek also crunched the top ten from several 100 Best Books lists and came up with their own Meta-list.  I did better here, I’ve read over 40% and heard of all but two of them.  Nothing very unusual about this list, War and Peace is first, 1984 second, and Ulysses is third.

Why is local shopping so important?  The AMIBA states that dollars spent in local businesses stick around your community three times longer than those given to a chain.   The American Booksellers Association, via the Indiebound website, gives specific reasons for shopping at your local businesses:

The Economy:  Spend $100 at a local and $68 of that stays in your community. Spend the same $100 at a national chain, and your community only sees $43.  Local businesses create higher-paying jobs for our neighbors. More of your taxes are reinvested in your community–where they belong.

The Environment:  Buying local means less packaging, less transportation, and a smaller carbon footprint.  Shopping in a local business district means less infrastructure, less maintenance, and more money to beautify your community.

The Community:  Local retailers are your friends and neighbors—support them and they’ll support you.  Local businesses donate to charities at more than twice the rate of national chains.  More independents means more choice, more diversity, and a truly unique community.

Of course, here at Bookstore People, we advocate always shopping at your local bookstore, in our opinion the crown jewel of independents.  To celebrate both Independents Week and independent bookstores, my3books is hosting a contest, tell them your favorite independent bookstore and the winning store receives a signed set of the Twilight series.  Show some love to your favorite store and enter it.

Make an effort this week to track how much of your shopping is done at local businesses.  Even better, spend your holiday dollars with an independent business while celebrating the 4th of July.

I love how this poem expresses a mother’s love and gives an example of the beauty of our planet.  On this Earth Day, enjoy!  While you’re at it, adopt a new habit that cares for our environment.

Bats 

Randall Jarrell

A bat is born
Naked and blind and pale.
His mother makes a pocket of her tail
and catches him.  He clings to her long fur
By his thumbs and toes and teeth.
And then the mother dances through the night
Doubling and looping, soaring, somersaulting-
Her baby hangs on underneath.
All night, in happiness, she hunts and flies.
Her high sharp cries
Like shining needlepoints of sound
Go out into the night, and echoing back,
Tell her what they have touched.
She hears how far it is, how big it is,
Which way it’s going:
She lives by hearing.
The mother eats the moths and gnats she catches
In full flight; in full flight
The mother drinks the water of the pond
She skims across.  Her baby hangs on tight.
Her baby drinks the milk she makes him
In moonlight or starlight, in mid-air.
Their single shadow, printed on the moon
Or fluttering across the stars,
Whirls on all night; at daybreak
The tired mother flaps home to her rafter.
The other all are there.
They hang themselves up by their toes,
They wrap themselves in their brown wings.
Bunched upside-down, they sleep in air.
Their sharp ears, their sharp teeth, their quick sharp faces
Are dull and slow and mild.
All the bright day, as the mother sleeps,
She folds her wings about her sleeping child.