“The Humility of Stewardship” also resulted from the GMF Nature Writer’s Retreat I attended in August. I actually adapted this and rewrote it from an Earth Day Sermon I gave in the nineties. I hope you enjoy it.
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In his poem “Hyla Brook” Robert Frost describes a small stream on his property. Instead of crystal clear pools and melodious cascades, Hyla Brook features blooms of “bent jewelweed” and “a faded paper sheet of dead leaves.” The intermittent brook even disappears underground for part of the year. Though Hyla Brook fails to inspire awe, we know Frost loves this humble stream because of the poem’s concluding line:
“We love the things we love for what they are.”
John Muir hinted at this kind of love when he wrote: “There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love ever showing itself whether recognized or not, and however covered by cares and duties.” Muir’s own love for wild nature caused him to start the Sierra Club in one of the earliest attempts to influence environmental policy. He invited Teddy Roosevelt on a camping trip with the purpose of persuading our 25th president to institute a system of National Parks. Yet in his writings Muir also demonstrates “an ancient mother-love” for the wilderness he treasures.
Millions of National Park visitors each year now get a taste of Muir’s “wild nature.” How could someone not adore massive granite peaks whose reflections are mirrored in crystal lakes. Or ancient trees that tower hundreds of feet above us mere mortal humans? Or thundering waterfalls thousands of feet high? Yosemite Falls overshadows humble places like Hyla Brook.
National Parks provide introductions to wild nature, but an ancient mother love comes from a different source. Such a love shows itself, despite being “covered by cares and duties,” when a piece of litter is plucked from a patch of pine needles. Meditating in a quiet, natural setting takes the place of awe or thrills.
“We love the things we love for what they are.”
I have been to John Muir’s Sierra, and to many other mountain cathedrals in this spectacular country of ours. Waterbodies such as Yosemite Falls, Crater Lake, and the Columbia River inspire and thrill me. I jumped off a seventy foot cliff into Punch Bowl Falls in Oregon, broke through ice to dive into a snow-covered alpine lake in Montana, and shot through the air while going down a natural water slide at Frye Brook in Maine.
None of this holds a place anywhere as near and dear to my heart as the small stream at the end of my street. After the heaviest of downpours engorges even small streams, my own Hyla Brook inspires a small bit of awe. Far more often the unassuming brook brings moments of quiet meditation, sprinkled with occasions of family joy.
I watched my kids go on their first major expedition along that stream, exploring the unknown reaches up to where it intersects with Maple Avenue. I led them on their first journey down the large storm drain where our version of Hyla Brook submerges under a road intersection. Once they could go on their own, I watched them leave excitedly with water shoes on and come back cheerfully as they tracked mud across the kitchen floor. This brings me as much joy as when I tracked mud from the same stream across the same kitchen floor.
“We love the things we love for what they are.”
Consider the implications of a different ending to Frost’s “Hyla Brook.” The poem concludes instead that “We love the things we love for what they do.” In this case belonging is not as important for love and attention as being noteworthy. Is that how love should work, for nature or each other?
National Parks are like famous people receiving adoration from the public. The adoration of millions leads to serious environmental consequences at times. What do we do about the accumulation of human wastes in the Grand Canyon, the severe overcrowding of people in Yosemite, the interaction of humans with wild animals in Yellowstone? We are grateful for the natural resource managers that struggle with these issues on the public’s behalf.
In contrast, our little Hyla Brook at the end of the street benefits from the stewardship of an ancient mother-love. Our kids jumped at the suggestion to do a clean-up of the stream from Emerson Street up to Maple Avenue. On another occasion I took a bunch of Cub Scouts to clean up the stream from Emerson Street down to where it intersects with the Blackberry River.
The stewardship extended beyond my family. One of our former neighbors was a manly man, a blue collar worker and hunter with a famous fondness for beer. He had a reputation for not being overly concerned with the upkeep or appearance of his house. Yet every year he planted flowers where the stream submerged under the intersection at the end of our street, in a dirt bed he created by the rocks above the storm drain. Planting each flower required him to kneel, much like at an altar. In a way that was what he was doing.
Frost’s “Hyla Brook” does not get the attention of some other poems like his “Mending Wall,” “The Road not Taken” or “Birches.” Instead this humble poem describes a humble stream cherished by the poet. Good stewards of the earth are not created by the spectacular places they visit, but by the Hyla Brooks they have adopted.
“We love the things we love for what they are.”
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