Feral Birds

In the story Becoming Feral by Sue Hubbell she uses the turkey hunters and other birds to show a connection between women and herself to the wild birds that live around her.   The main bird spoke of in the story is the turkeys, however the other bird she uses are the barn owl, the indigo bunting, cardinals, Carolina chickadees and sparrows.  Each of these birds serve a purpose in Hubbell’s story by connecting her to nature.  This connection starts with the turkey hunters, which leads her connecting the turkeys to woman, and then her directly connecting herself with some of the birds.

                The short story starts with two turkey hunters imitating a barn owl.  The hunters make these call to locate the tom within the early morning or late evening.  The owl hoot is used to cause a shock gobble from the tom and then when the hunters know the turkeys position and are ready they then use a hen call to lure in the tom.   Hunters normally make these calls 30 minutes before sunrise during the time that cardinals begin to sing (Gulvas).  They stop the owl calls a soon as the crows begin to call and then they switch over to imitate crow calls if needed.

                Within the story, Sue Hubbell uses the turkeys that the hunters are hunting and connects them to women.  One of these connections is when she says that men are attracted to females who are in their breeding years and sill want to build a nest.  This nest can refer to a woman wanting to find a home they can call their own to create a family.  These women see the home as a safe environment in which that they can live and peacefully raise their young.  The same goes for the turkey who build their nests after finding their mate so that they can lay their eggs.  Hens try to find a place to build the nest that is safe so they can raise their young peacefully without worrying about predators.

                The author’s connection to the birds allows her to desire to be closer to nature.  In the second to last paragraph she states, “I want a turkey too, but I want mine alive.”  “I want indigo buntings singing their couplets when I wake in the morning.” This leads her to also want other things in nature and wanting to know more about the nature around her.  Which allows her to decide to sleep outside where she may achieve gaining a closer relationship with nature. In a way using the they turkey and the indigo bunting in these last paragraph shows us that she may also want to be young again and to feel the love of a family.  Since the turkey can symbolize fertility and the indigo bunting can symbolize love. 

                I’ve only briefly gone over the relationship between birds with woman and the author, however it is amazing how much can still be uncovered in this short story.  Becoming Feral by Sue Hubbell is a story that I have enjoyed reading just to see these little relationships between the nature around her and lets us know what she may want in life which shows what she treasures.  This could also ably to the nature that we live in; it has the possibility to show us the little things we value in life and maybe a little about ourselves.

Sources:

Gulvas, Denny. Wild Turkey Sounds. n.d. 26 02 2017. <https://www.nwtf.org/hunt/wild-turkey-basics/turkey-sounds>.

 Swenson, M. (2003). I Will Lie Down. In L. Anderson, Sisters of The Earth (Second ed., p. 53). New York: Vintage Books.

Appreciating Bats

I enjoyed reading Emily Dickinson’s poem “The BAT is dun with wrinkled wings” because she describes the bat as a positive creature.   There are people that see bats as being ugly, scary and sometime as pests, however I enjoy having these creatures around and they do play an important role in life.  In Dickinson’s poem she discusses how fascinating a bat is and that the creator of the bat should be praised and I agree with her; bats are fascinating and important creatures.

In Dickinson’s poem she goes into great length to describe the bat for what it is and praise the creator of the creature.  She uses the first two stanzas just to describe how the bat looks and how it flies.  By describing the bat looking, “dun with wrinkled wings,” means that the bat had wrinkled brownish-grey wings. This can tell us that the bat that she is describing could very well be one of the common brown bats that live in the area where she lived because these bats have a brown fur, but yet their wings are more of a grayish pigment to them.  She also describes the bats movement as, “Describing in the air an arc alike inscrutable, Elate philosopher,” which shows her fascination of how bats don’t have a pattern when flying and even philosophers wouldn’t be able to predict their movements.  In the last third stanza Dickinson wonders who designed the bat with stating, “Deputed from what firmament of what astute abode,” and then states that the creator should be praised in the last stanza with these two lines, “To his adroit Creator Ascribe no less the praise.”  Showing that she appreciates that these creatures were created and that the creator of these creatures should be praised for creating such an interesting being.

I personally grew up knowing bats where good creatures to have around and was fascinated by these creatures.  It was my father that told me that they eat many of the mosquitoes which controls the population of mosquitoes so there are less of them to bother us while we are outside.   My father even set up a few bat house so that more of them would stick around.  I also find bats very fascinating to watch fling around on brighter nights.  The way they move is so swift that it is amazing that they can fly so fast and change direction so quickly without normally running into anything.  There are some bats I even find cute because of how small and vulnerable they can be.

There are many species of bats around the world and each of them play a very important role in life; the world would be a very different place without them.  About 1,300 species of bats consume insects which includes some of the agricultural pests (batcon.org).  Bats control these populations so that not as many crops are damaged which is a large benefit for humans since a large amount of crops and money that is saved when they eat these pests.  Some bats even help with pollinating certain plants.  Plants such as the giant cacti and agave in the North American deserts depend on the bats to pollinate them and without pollination these plants wouldn’t be able to seeds or fruit (batcon.org).  This then would affect other animals in the desert since a lot of them rely on such plants for shelter, food, and even water.  There are also some bats that contribute to restoring forests such as the fruit-eating bats (batcon.org).  They effective disperse seed into forestlands to start new growth.  This growth helps regenerate many of the clear-cut forest since the bats start the forest’s undergrowth that provides shelter for the other animals that then come and spread more delicate plants though out the forest.

Bats are very significant creatures and Emily Dickinson and I agree that bats are both interesting and important creatures to have around.  There are over 1,300 species of bats all over the world and it is important that people get to know these creatures more because of how essential they are in the world (batcon.org).  Knowing this maybe people will take more consideration for these creatures because many of their lives are threatened by humans.   I believe Emily Dickinson’s poem sheds some light on these creatures and perhaps by reading this some people will take more consideration on their importance and begin to appreciate these creatures more. 

Sources:

"Bats Are Important." 2017. Bat Conservation International. Web Site. 12 02 2017. <http://www.batcon.org/why-bats/bats-are/bats-are-important>.

Cullina, Alice. Chainani, Soman ed. "Emily Dickinson’s Collected Poems “The Bat is dun, with wrinkled Wings –” Summary and Analysis". GradeSaver, 26 July 2009 Web. 12 February 2017.

Dickinson, Emily. "The Bat is dun with wrinkled wings." Complete Poems. 1924. Poem. 12 02 2017.

Closer to Nature in Death

When first reading May Swenson’s poem I Will Lie Down I began to wonder if the speaker is mindful or not to the environment around her. I also began think on how the nature may correlate with the speaker.  Towards the end of the poem I began to realize that in death she seems the closest to nature and perhaps as she lays there she feels closer to nature. 

In Swenson’s poem the speaker seems to know what is going on around her but she doesn’t seem to appreciate it.  This is most apparent in the fifth stanza as the speaker states, “I will sleep face down in the burnt meadow no hearing the sound of water over stones.”   She knows that there is a water source near her since she mentions it, however she does hear the sound of the water, whether it is because she is too far away or for what I believe is that she doesn’t want to hear it and is blocking out the sound.  I came to this conclusion because in the poem the speaker states that she slept face down.  Sleeping faced down she is not able to see what is going around her and yet she knows about the environment around her.  After seeing everything around her, she chose to lie face down and when doing so she chose not to acknowledge what was going on around her was more concerned about her own death.

The nature in the poem relates most to the fact that the speaker is dying.  In the last stanza of the poem the speaker states, “Let snow hide the whiteness of my bones.”  The snow covering her bones suggest the association between her death and winter.  This then connects the speaker waiting to death to overtake her, to the season of autumn.  Autumn can be considered the age before death since many plants begin to die off or prepare for hibernation before the winter.  I believe that Swenson used the seasons to show the relationship between the speaker waiting death since both autumn and the speaker prepare for the next stage in life whether it be winter or the end of life.

The speaker though out the poem seems to be the closest to nature as her life comes to an end.  Even though she doesn’t to acknowledge the environment around her she still seems very close to nature in the way she dies.  There are many environments that the speaker could be preparing to die in such as at home in bed or in a hospital, however she decides to die peacefully within nature.  Nature often has peaceful qualities and dyeing within nature gives her death a peaceful attribute.  I believe that she may have wished to be closer to nature and that is why she prepared to die here.  Perhaps by dying in nature she could become one with it before she took her last breath. 

I really enjoyed reading I will Lie Down because of the correlation between nature and death.  For me the poem creates the sense that death can be beautiful because of its balance between the peaceful atmosphere of nature and the darker undertones of death from the speaker.  This would be a poem to keep analyzing to understand more on how nature and the speaker’s death relates.  I am still curious if the speaker may actually wish she was closer to nature in her life and that is why she decided to be closer to nature in death.  

References:

Swenson, M. (2003). I Will Lie Down. In L. Anderson, Sisters of The Earth (Second ed., p. 53). New York: Vintage Books.