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"In The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons -- from a crow spied on New Year's Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring -- what develops is a portrait of joy and grief: joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer. Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life. Grown children, unexpectedly home during the pandemic, prepare to depart once more. Birdsong and night-blooming flowers evoke generations past. The city and the country where Renkl raised her family transform a little more with each passing day. And the natural world, now in visible flux, requires every ounce of hope and commitment from the author--and from us. For, as Renkl writes, 'radiant things are bursting forth in the darkest places, in the smallest nooks and deepest cracks of the hidden world.' With fifty-two original color artworks by the author's brother, Billy Renkl, The Comfort of Crows is a lovely and deeply moving book from a cherished observer of the natural world." --… (más)
Love the front of chapter quotes and Billy Renkl's 5 STAR brilliant art (exception = the dying on Page 256). It is for his photographs, paintings, drawings, and composition that the book will be kept, not for the words.
From the beginning - "Lord what fool this mortal be..." where I have no clue which metaphor she means - then onto the constant, unremitting phases of death: Is there really no Love for Life without Death?
Deadwood, dead December, all the dead and dying animals, including her personal experiences with killing them
(WHY the author needed to share ALL this? Does it heighten anyone's Joy? - or even help to avoid repeating her mistakes? our Monarchs raised on the kitchen table survive well and depart our backyard with strong flying wings to head south),
endless reminders of stupidity of human exploitation, poisoning, and destruction - yet with NO clues at to what Actions she will take!
More second guessing when she actually braves the forces of nature and helps an animal - aren't we part of nature and so contribute our help?
Onto horrible images of dead rat snake, dying mealworms, dead car driver, little mole hands in coyote scat, dead "baby chick" "story" - feeding live crickets and "roll-poly" to toads with zero compassion for death of live creatures - Gerbil "story" should make your day...along with the dead cottontails and the three birds...
Endless handwringing with no Links to organizations that will help animals and the environment, not even an invitation to join her in writing to Joe to ask him to stop Daylight Savings after we earn the good Hour... ( )
This will no doubt be the best book I read this year, and it is only February. Renkl's writing is gorgeous. Her perceptions of things make me jealous that I don't seem capable of perceiving things her way. I think I teared up on every page of this book. What she wrote about, the feeling she put into it, her sincerity, her loving, caring nature, all of that just swept me along. I read this book in one day. I thought it was magnificent. ( )
A contemplative book of essays on looking at, and appreciating, the world around us. It mentions not raking leaves, letting weeds and wildflowers grow to help the pollinators, and other ways to appreciate the natural world. Renkl discusses the change of seasons and relates it to her life as her children grow older, and prepare to leave the family home. It is a beautiful book of meditations. Very enjoyable and peaceful, giving me a lot to think about as I look at the world around me. ( )
This is the author's account of a "backyard year" that actually spanned a few years, with chapters themed after the seasons. I could empathize a lot with the author's experience of the joys and sorrows of living and trying to keep things alive in a world seemingly in a death spiral. I loved how she emphasized death and rebirth, creating a book that was at times heartbreaking and others hilarious. Chock full of metaphors and quotes for tree-huggers and bird watchers of the world. I know a book is good when I'm sad it's over, but I feel like a lot of what she shared in it will persist as long as my memory. ( )
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
"Nature" is what we see--
The Hill--the Afternoon--
Squirrel--Eclipse--the Bumble bee...
--EMILY DICKINSON
To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.
--MARY OLIVER
Dedicatoria
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
For my children, who give me faith in the future
Primeras palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
Stop and look at the tangled rootlets of the poison ivy vine climbing the locust tree.
Citas
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
According to birding tradition, the first bird you see on the first day of the new year sets the tone for your next twelve months. One year, the first bird I saw was a downy woodpecker, or possibly a hairy woodpecker--the two species look virtually identical, particularly to a person who spies her first bird of the new year before she has had her first coffee of the new year. Because I couldn't sort it out in the instant before the woodpecker got spooked and flew awa, my theme bird that year was neither species of woodpecker. Instead it was a robin, the second bird I saw that morning. As the robin stood on the edge of the birdbath, watching me as I watched it, I found myself wondering if birds play a New Year's game called "First Human." (p. 5)
Always I find more answers in a forest than I find in my own hot attic of a mind. Scientists have made studies of the walking brain, and the results are dumbfounding. Given a test that measures creativity, college students sitting at a table produced unremarkable results. But when scientists put them on a treadmill, or sent them for a walk around campus, their brains lit up like the night sky. The students who walked produced 60 percent more original ideas than the students who were sitting. (p. 162)
Últimas palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
I am far from feeling any confidence in the future, but when I look at the busy tableau before me, something flutters inside--something that feels just a little bit like hope.
"In The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons -- from a crow spied on New Year's Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring -- what develops is a portrait of joy and grief: joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer. Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life. Grown children, unexpectedly home during the pandemic, prepare to depart once more. Birdsong and night-blooming flowers evoke generations past. The city and the country where Renkl raised her family transform a little more with each passing day. And the natural world, now in visible flux, requires every ounce of hope and commitment from the author--and from us. For, as Renkl writes, 'radiant things are bursting forth in the darkest places, in the smallest nooks and deepest cracks of the hidden world.' With fifty-two original color artworks by the author's brother, Billy Renkl, The Comfort of Crows is a lovely and deeply moving book from a cherished observer of the natural world." --
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(4.46)
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It is for his photographs, paintings, drawings, and composition that the book will be kept, not for the words.
From the beginning - "Lord what fool this mortal be..." where I have no clue which metaphor she means -
then onto the constant, unremitting phases of death: Is there really no Love for Life without Death?
Deadwood, dead December, all the dead and dying animals, including her personal experiences
with killing them
(WHY the author needed to share ALL this? Does it heighten anyone's Joy? - or even help to avoid repeating her mistakes?
our Monarchs raised on the kitchen table survive well and depart our backyard with strong flying wings to head south),
endless reminders of stupidity of human exploitation, poisoning, and destruction -
yet with NO clues at to what Actions she will take!
More second guessing when she actually braves the forces of nature and helps an animal -
aren't we part of nature and so contribute our help?
Onto horrible images of dead rat snake, dying mealworms, dead car driver,
little mole hands in coyote scat, dead "baby chick" "story" -
feeding live crickets and "roll-poly" to toads with zero compassion for death of live creatures -
Gerbil "story" should make your day...along with the dead cottontails and the three birds...
Endless handwringing with no Links to organizations that will help animals and the environment,
not even an invitation to join her in writing to Joe to ask him to stop Daylight Savings after we earn the good Hour... (