海角大神

When the urgencies of life give way to rare moments of reflection, many of us look to nature for inspiration 鈥� birds at the feeder, darting squirrels, the slow arc of a sunflower bending toward the sky.聽

Essayist Margaret Renkl captures the experience of gazing out the window or puttering just beyond our doorsteps. Her latest book, 鈥淭he Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year,鈥� records her discoveries as an ardent amateur naturalist.

Renkl is best known for her New York Times essays about life in the American South. It鈥檚 a big region, but Renkl鈥檚 particular lens is Nashville, Tennessee. She often sharpens the ideal of the local writer to a fine point, filing dispatches about what鈥檚 blooming, wriggling, or flying within her half-acre lot.

Renkl鈥檚 first book, 鈥淟ate Migrations,鈥� was a memoir that drew substantially on her Times essays, and it was followed by 鈥淕raceland, At Last,鈥� a kind of greatest hits of her newspaper work. 鈥淭he Comfort of Crows鈥� draws on earlier material, too, but to a much lesser degree. Most of the material here is new.

In a nod to a long tradition of nature writing, 鈥淭he Comfort of Crows鈥� arranges its observations over 12 months, a scheme used to good effect by classics of the genre such as Sue Hubbell鈥檚 鈥淎 Country Year鈥� and Verlyn Klinkenborg鈥檚 鈥淭he Rural Life.鈥� It鈥檚 a narrative mode that offers the pleasing prospect of the familiar, as the theater of earth and sky plays out in its usual four acts of winter, spring, summer, and fall.

In 鈥淭he Comfort of Crows,鈥� though, we鈥檙e quickly reminded that the ancient march of the seasons isn鈥檛 to be taken for granted. 鈥淭he problem is that these once-predictable patterns keep getting upended,鈥� Renkl tells readers in a reference to phenomena linked to climate change. 鈥淚t can be ninety degrees one winter day and drop below freezing that very night.鈥�

Although she concedes that a nature lover鈥檚 front-row seat to such disruptions 鈥渃an be a form of self-torment,鈥� Renkl鈥檚 book isn鈥檛 a uniformly sad one.

鈥淚n this troubled world,鈥� she writes, 鈥渋t would be a crime to snuff out any flicker of happiness that somehow flames up into life. We are creatures built for joy.鈥�

As the title 鈥淭he Comfort of Crows鈥� suggests, Renkl finds joy in unusual places. She鈥檚 thrilled, as any sentient soul would be, by iconically beautiful sights. Renkl revels, for example, in flowering dogwoods, redbuds, and other trees so heavy with spring blooms that 鈥渆very time it rains, the streets are paved with petals.鈥� But she seems to understand that crows, which 鈥渄on鈥檛 nest in plain view as the bluebirds do, or stand on the fence posts and sing like the mockingbirds,鈥� are more of an acquired taste.聽

Renkl loves crows, she decides, because 鈥淚 see in them my own kind.鈥� Like people, crows appear to have a capacity for play, and they retain a family structure that looks a lot like a human household. Even so, Renkl admits, loving crows 鈥渋s sometimes a struggle, especially during the breeding season, when they poach the young from songbird nests to feed to their own young.鈥澛�

But as she notes elsewhere in the book, crows and other entities in the natural world aren鈥檛 living their lives for our approval. For Renkl, this abiding reality is a liberation. 鈥淭he natural world鈥檚 perfect indifference,鈥� she tells readers, 鈥渉as always been the best cure for my own anxieties. Every living thing 鈥� every bird and mammal and reptile and amphibian, every tree and shrub and flower and moss 鈥� is pursuing its own vital purpose, a purpose that sets my human concerns in a larger context. ... The earthworms beneath the soil haven鈥檛 the least idea of the frets that pluck at my heart. In their rest, I find rest.鈥澛�

Renkl鈥檚 brother, artist Billy Renkl, provides illustrations for the 52 chapters. He often employs a collage approach in which birds and butterflies, plants and clouds subtly interact like treasures framed within a shadow box. Their containment points to our own complicated relationship with backyard landscapes and, by extension, with the planet 鈥� namely, that as we seek to hold nature, it鈥檚 holding us.

Amid this vast multiplicity of life, a variety evident even within the intimate boundaries of a home garden, Renkl invites us to slow down and take it in, one small miracle at a time. 鈥淲e were never cast out of Eden,鈥� she writes. 鈥淲e merely turned from it and shut our eyes. To return and be welcomed, cleansed, and redeemed, we are only obliged to look.鈥�