Notice the different tones of these works. What tone(s) do you find moving? As you reflect on your experiences with nature, what emotions come up? Try moving and writing about those emotions, which can inform the mood of your work. 

Song for the Rainy Season (1960)

by Elizabeth Bishop

Hidden, oh hidden 

in the high fog 

the house we live in, 

beneath the magnetic rock, 

rain—, rainbow—ridden, 

where blood—black 

bromelias, lichens, 

owls, and the lint 

of the waterfalls cling, 

familiar, unbidden. 

In a dim age 

of water 

the brook sings loud 

from a rib cage 

of giant fern; vapor 

climbs up the thick growth 

effortlessly, turns back, 

holding them both, 

house and rock, 

in a private cloud. 

At night, on the roof, 

blind drops crawl 

and the ordinary brown 

owl gives us proof 

he can count: 

five times—always five—

he stamps and takes off 

after the fat frogs that, 

shrilling for love, 

clamber and mount. 

House, open house 

to the white dew 

and the milk—white sunrise 

kind to the eyes, 

to membership 

of silver fish, mouse, 

bookworms, 

big moths; with a wall 

for the mildew’s 

ignorant map; 

darkened and tarnished 

by the warm touch 

of the warm breath, 

maculate, cherished; 

rejoice! For a later 

era will differ. 

(O difference that kills 

or intimidates, much 

of all our small shadowy 

life!) Without water 

the great rock will stare 

unmagnetized, bare, 

no longer wearing 

rainbows or rain, 

the forgiving air 

and the high fog gone; 

the owls will move on 

and the several 

waterfalls shrivel 

in the steady sun.

Birches (1915)

by Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows—

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father's trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It’s when I’m weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig’s having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:

I don’t know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Glacier (1993)

by Zvi Gotheiner

This piece is from the same RDT concert and choreographer as "Erosion" on the last page. You might have to watch the video on your phone if it's choppy on your computer.

Water Study (1928)

by Doris Humphrey

https://www.numeridanse.tv/en/dance-videotheque/water-study