Wednesday, February 26, 2014

If you have ever gone to the woods with me

These photographs were taken in Vaakkoi on February 18th. This is a nice place for walking, this time of the year, as there are few people who walk here, and the road noise isn't too bad, at least in the north parts of the area.

But this isn't quite so fine landscape as certain parts of Nuuksio, in which you can experience nature in a more wild form, or Meiko, which is much less known and thus even less visited by people. Also, this is moose territory, not so much roe deer here, compared to Meiko. But for picking blueberries (and maybe even cloudberries) this is a fine place during summer.

I'm now reading a book of poems by Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems, which has been translated into Finnish.

Why didn't I know of Oliver before? She has won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and has a really long career, not to speak of her skill of being an "indefatigable guide to the natural world, particularly to its lesser-known aspects."

I'm hooked after reading only a couple of poems. As an example, the prose poem "How I Go to the Woods" starts as follows (here I looked up the original version):

Ordinarily I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable.

(Posting title is from this poem.)

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