Scott Melville

Landscape Lovers, Lords of Language Scott Melville

Landscape Lovers, Lords of Language: Poetic Thoughts on Nature This anthology is filled with men and women who loved nature and who had the talent and energy to express it. You will find here a mix of poetic prose and poems by nearly three hundred literary giants from the past and the present. They will provide words that will enable you to better suck the marrow out of contacts with nature. When you see your next rainbow, beyond exclaiming a sincere but impoverished "Wow," you could hear Wordsworth saying "My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky." On winter excursions you, like Dickinson, might wistfully notice "there's a certain slant of light, on winter afternoons." And you may relish summer trips with a nostalgic Riley, down roads "with sunshine spread as thick as butter on country bread." This book is primarily about appreciatively describing the many aspects of nature and the diverse thoughts and moods they invoke. These are covered in PART I: THE NATURAL WORLD. Its twenty-nine chapters explore the world alphabetically from Animals (1), Autumn (2), ... to ... Winter (28), Wind & Weather (29). PART II: NATURE COMPROMISED, consists of 3 chapters: Animals Compromised (30), Cities, Cars & Crowding (31), and Development & Environmental Degradation (32). Although these topics are distressful, it is somehow comforting to know that thoughtful others, long past and present, have likewise been disturbed by environmental degrading and have eloquently expressed their pain. In PART III: NATURE-GOING, the focus turns to the spirit of exploration/adventure and physical involvement with nature. For most lovers of nature, bodily exertion in some form is an integral part of the experience. Included are walkers/hikers, runners, ice-skaters, paddlers/rowers, flyers, surfers and sailors. Those who take up this book are asked to read slowly, to "read happily." Carl Sandburg thought it would be a tragedy not to store one's mind with poems. He did not want to have to run to some desk drawer to find a passage. The moment would be lost. He wanted to have them in readiness, to be able to say them out loud, to "Shout them into the teeth of a strong wind" or "whisper them down the river valley on a late summer afternoon."