“The Summer Day” has long been one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems. Teeming simultaneously with wonder and simplicity, she penned, “Who made the world? / Who made the swan, and the black bear? / Who made the grasshopper? / This grasshopper, I mean – …”

Questions come to mind in a similar fashion as the sweet, surprisingly balmy rays of February sun warm my back, hunched slightly from scribbling into my notebook and trying to figure out if the kaleidoscope of swirls I see in the water are actually eddylines. Regardless, the creek babbles on by as I sit, perched on the far end of the bridge that spans White Clay Creek, about two miles from the intersection of Prospect and North College Avenues. I wonder: who made this bridge? Who made that concrete barrier nearby, and who made that mysterious fenced-in structure? Who made the house that sits atop the hill across the road?

These are questions, I think, that may not have surfaced had I not been sitting on this bridge, intently observing the woods around me. In many cases, it is much easier for us to discern the ways in which humans have destroyed humans. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt begins with several snapshots of human loss in and around Pine Ridge, South Dakota: humans are destroyed in prison, where gangs battle for drugs, sex, alcohol, and, above all, power. Humans are destroyed throughout the “the rez,” where violence and substance abuse reign, and where many, if not most, lack healthcare and employment. And devastatingly, humans destroyed Native American culture, tradition, and religion, most bitterly through the nineteenth century. White settlers saw economic opportunity and potential for Power where Native American communities had been blossoming for centuries and centuries, so with a grand, sickening burst of gunpowder, these humans stripped their fellow man and woman of their land, heritage, and vitality. Reflecting on this oft-ignored period of history, my brow furrows involuntarily; such intentional cruelty has my mind running in circles around the word “why.”

And what about unintentional cruelty towards the earth? It takes a late morning, sitting on a bridge above White Clay Creek, drinking in the winter sunshine to take note of the subtle ways in which humans have destroyed wilderness: a bridge, a concrete barrier, a mysterious structure, a house. Even more so, the chemicals that flow in and out of industry straight into our bodies, the air we breathe, homes we live in, and water we drink – possibly the same water that flows beneath my feet today in White Clay Creek. The same, too, that pools in muddy basins, rising as the snow melts, at the feet of the trees that surround me.
Noise, like water, also surrounds me. Students run by, huffing and chatting. A patchwork of dry grasses, each tuft several feet tall, dances in the wind, strumming a soft symphony. Dry, winter trees creak in the wind, startling me. Sugary birdcalls and the harsh honk of geese add to this soup of sound.

My first instinct is that they’re flapping overhead, like in Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese.” But I look up and they’re not there. I look behind me, into the woods, and see one goose pecking into a muddy puddle. The closer I look, between the trees and behind tangled, dry grasses, the more geese I see. It’s amazing that I hadn’t noticed them when I assumed my position on the bridge, but I suppose my slip is a testament to their muddy brown feathers, how expertly they blend into the earth.

In “Wild Geese,” Oliver concluded: “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, / the world offers itself to your imagination, / calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – / over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.” Today, I see the destruction we’ve caused to the earth and to others; it’s easy to see. It’s even easier to adopt this pessimism as a focus. But like Oliver, I must be hopeful that we can again find ourselves “in the family of things.” On this afternoon in White Clay, for instance, I can choose to focus on human destruction and carelessness; or, I can focus on how even in the thick of winter, there is warmth. Even when the landscape appears bleached by winter’s severity, I see a pair of cardinals tucked into the brush, timid green leaves making an early entrance, and a tapestry of subtle reds and oranges in the tree trunks that stretch as far as the eye can see.