In today's NYT, news of David Waggoner passing.
Ask anyone familiar with his work in the least way, and it'll be confirmed: he was a poet of nature, a Midwesterner (Indiana!) transplanted to the Pacific Northwest, and a protege of Theodore Roethke.
And the next time you sit down to write a nature poem, make this one your model for how to do it . . .
The Poets Agree to Be Quiet by the Swamp
They hold their hands over their mouths
And stare at the stretch of water.
What can be said has been said before:
Strokes of light like herons' legs in the cattails,
Mud underneath, frogs lying even deeper.
Therefore, the poets may keep quiet.
But the corners of their mouths grin past their hands.
They stick their elbows out into the evening,
Stoop, and begin the ancient croaking.
The Times' obituary quotes Waggoner: "Poets change the nature of reality for everyone."
Hear, hear.
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