Month: November 2008

Wilbur’s “Blackberries for Amelia”

Several articles, including ‘A Mind of Grace’ , state that “Blackberries for Amelia” is currently Wilbur’s favorite poem:

Fringing the woods, the stone walls, and the lanes,
Old thickets everywhere have come alive,
Their new leaves reaching out in fans of five
From tangles overarched by this year’s canes.

They have their flowers, too, it being June,
And here or there in brambled dark-and-light
Are small, five-petalled blooms of chalky white,
As random-clustered and as loosely strewn

As the far stars, of which we are now told
That ever faster do they bolt away,
And that a night may come in which, some say,
We shall have only blackness to behold.

I have no time for any change so great,
But I shall see the August weather spur
Berries to ripen where the flowers were —
Dark berries, savage-sweet and worth the wait —

And there will come the moment to be quick
And save some from the birds,and I shall need
Two pails, old clothes in which to stain and bleed,
And a grandchild to talk with while we pick.

It might be my favorite Wilbur poem, too, certainly my favorite of his later poems. I’m not always optimistic about mankind’s future; I’m sure there’s a dark hole waiting out there somewhere, but when I look into the distance I’m comforted by the realization I won’t be there. No, I live my life one season at a time — with an occasional look forward to the next one.

I haven’t actually picked blackberries with any of my grandchildren, but some of my earliest childhood memories are of picking wild blackberries with my family and sitting in the kitchen watching mom transform those sour berries into the sweetest pie ever.

The high points of my retirement invariably involve a grandchild, whether it’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Disneyland, a trip to the zoo, or a simple birding walk. Retirement gives you the time to do all those things you should have done when you were younger but were too busy to do.

Some Southeast Asian Butterflies

I generally don’t hold to superstitious beliefs, at least when it comes to numbers, but the third time definitely turned out to be the charm for Lael and I at the Pacific Science Center Butterfly Garden, as it was opened for the first time of our three visits this Fall. Good thing, too, as the weather definitely favored inside activities, and the Butterfly Garden seemed like the perfect antidote for a cold and gray Fall day.

Lael picked up some new skills since we were there last Spring. She picked up the identification guides and pointed out not only many flowers in the guide, but many of the butterflies, with a, “Look, Pahtah!” when she’d identified one. Each time I’d ask her what it’s name was, and she’d reply “I don’t read, Grandpa” in a rather dismissive tone, wondering how I could have forgotten so soon.

Lael With Butterfly Guide

She’s even grown a little more patient, as she was actually willing to circle the garden twice as grandpa tried to capture the elusive perfect butterfly shot.

Although I’ll admit that I usually think of brilliant colors when I think of butterflies, as I was strangely attracted to several black and white butterflies I haven’t managed to get a good picture of before. Black is notoriously hard to get a correct exposure of, so I was happy with this shot of a Southeast Asian “Pink Rose, which struck me as a rather strange name for a black butterfly.

Pink Rose Butterfly

My favorite of the day, though was this Rice Paper, or Paper Kite, butterfly, also from Southeast Asia.

Rice Paper Butterfly

I didn’t remember seeing this butterfly before, and looking back over previous shots, I was unable to find a single shot of one. Considering their subtle beauty I would have been surprised if I’d missed seeing something this beautiful if it had been there before:

Rice Paper Butterfly

Wilbur’s “A Wood”

In “Waking to Sleep: New Poems and Translations(1969)” and “The Mind-Reader: New Poems (1976)” Wilbur, as the title indicates, introduces a number of translations to his work. Wikipedia notes, that he is known not only for his translation of poems but of several French plays. Personally, I found the translations less interesting than his own poems, but that’s probably largely a matter of personal taste.

Although I didn’t find any poems that stood out from the rest as in the earlier collections, I did find numerous poems that I enjoyed. My favorite poems usually deal with nature as does:

A WOOD

Some would distinguish nothing here but oaks,
Proud heads conversant with the power and glory
Of heaven’s rays or heaven’s thunderstrokes,
And adumbrators to the understory,
Where, in their shade, small trees of modest leanings
Contend for light and are content with gleanings.

And yet here’s dogwood: overshadowed, small,
But not inclined to droop and count its losses,
It cranes its way to sunlight after all,
And signs the air of May with Maltese crosses.
And here’s witch hazel, that from underneath
Great vacant boughs will bloom in winter’s teeth.

Given a source of light so far away
That nothing, short or tall, comes very near it,
Would it not take a proper fool to say
That any tree has not the proper spirit?
Air, water, earth and fire are to be blended,
But no one style, I think, is recommended.

I must admit I’m somewhat ambivalent about Wilbur’s formal style. It’s hard not to admire his ability to rhyme without allowing the rhymes to intrude into the poem, as they so often do, but when combined with phrases like “adumbrators to the understory” and “Maltese crosses” it begins to intrude upon the content of the poem.

Despite that, the poem offers a delightful observation, one that’s seldom made. “Mighty oaks” has become a cliché because past poets emphasized their majestic strength, their longevity. And it’s not only poets who have perpetuated these clichés. Just consider this purple passage, for instance.

Unfortunately, there’s a natural tendency to notice the obvious and ignore the hidden, to value the mighty and devalue the weak, to prefer the ostentatious to the subtle. It takes the artist to convince us of the value, and the beauty, of all.