A Dream of Nature

Stephanie Martin

A Dream of Nature

Birds I saw in bushes made nests.
Even a simple one no man
Could ever make. And when and where
I wondered did the magpie learn
To weave sticks one with another
To secure her nest? Carpenters
Couldn't do anything as good,
No designer make a blueprint
For it either. It astonished
Me even more that many birds
Hid their eggs, carefully concealed,
So that only the parent birds
Themselves could find them. Some I saw
Did their breeding high in the trees
And hatched their young way up above
The ground. Diving birds plumped deep down
In swamps, moorland ponds and reedbeds,
Wherever there was water. 'Dear
God,' I cried, 'What school do all these
Wild things go to, to get such sense?'
And then the peacock; I saw how 
He mated, how roughly the bird
Went about it. I marvelled at 
His splendour along with his crude
Screaming voice. I looked at the sea
And on further to the high stars.
The whole world was full of wonders
Too many to put down now, flowers
In the fields, their dazzling colours,
So many different shades, sprung
From the same earth and grassy fields,
Some bitter to the taste, some sweet.
It seemed all one great miracle
Ranged too wide for me to record
But what struck me and set me back
Was that reason seemed to govern
All creatures and how they acted
Except for man, except mankind.


From Piers Plowman by William Langland
translated by Ronald Tamplin 

It's a wonder to me too. How do they know? How do they do it? Every spring, we could ask the same questions.