Nature Portfolio

Native American Creation Story
Peel’d Cabbage woke up to the dull thump of a wooden object hitting the tin roof of his half-story shack. He slid out of his cot and peered through the makeshift window he had constructed out of cellophane and duct tape out into the yard. Another thump. Peel’d couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, so he waited. Another thump. Something fell out of the dead birch tree next to his covered wagon. He stood up in surprise and smashed his head on the cold, metal ceiling.
Peel’d was eight feet tall, so he naturally had trouble living in a shack that only went up half a story. If he wanted to stand, he would have to bend over until he made a perfect right angle. This was no easy task for Peel’d; afflicted with an upper-rear pelvis abnormality at the age of seven, his body could only form a 94-degree angle at least (on a good day!).
The sudden shock to Peel’d’s skull made him to fall to the floor. He was used to it, because it happened almost every day, so he crawled to the plywood door and peeked out. The thumps on the roof had become more frequent, and he could see small objects falling onto the lawn from out of the sky. Shielding his head, Peel’d quickly shuffled into the yard and picked up one of the objects on the ground. After he examined it for a few minutes, he concluded that it was a 3.75-inch oblong oakwood top hat that a doll, or some other small, person-shaped thing wood wear.
Peel’d looked up at the gray, cold sky, and a wooden top hat clocked him in the eyebrow. He covered his head again and ran back into his shack, but not before clotheslining himself on the door frame. As he paced around the room (on his knees, of course) and iced his sore head, he attempted to come up with an idea that would somehow slow the rain of 3.75-inch oblong oakwood top hats; the tin on the tin roof was the same thickness of the tin of a tin can rather than of an enforced tin roof, so it would surely give way to the increased weight over time.
In all of his concentration, he hadn’t noticed the 3.75-inch oblong oakwood top hats were starting to exhibit strange behavior. The pounding on the roof had stopped, but it seemed as though they were all bouncing off of some invisible force field around his half-story shack. The silence snapped him out of his concentration mode, and he took notice of the invisible barrier around the house.
Peel’d tightened his grip on the bag of ice (which had become mostly liquid) and walked outside. Once he was on the lawn, he turned to look at the shack. The 3.75-inch oblong oakwood top hats had resumed their attack on the ever-weakening roof, but Peel’d remained untouched. The ice bag had finally had enough of Peel’d’s every-tightening squeeze, and it decided to burst. Cold water shot everywhere, and some of the top hats fizzed and fell to the ground.
It’s water! Peel’d thought to himself as an idea crept into his (small) brain, I need water to repel these things! He sprinted back inside, smacking his shoulder on the side of the door as he entered. He didn’t have time to grope, so he grabbed a bucket and filled it up with salty tap water. Once the bucket was full, Peel’d poured the salty water everywhere that his arms could reach. He instantly filled the bucket back up, ran outside, and emptied the contents into the lawn.
This continued for many years, and the water content in the land became so great that the top hats ceased their downpour completely. Through his work, Peel’d managed to cover the entire planet with miles upon miles of deep caverns full of water. He decided to name his work, but as he was telling everyone what it was to be called, he hit his shin on a barrel and shouted, “Oh, shin!” It became known as the ocean.
So, the next time you go to the shore, be sure to thank Peel’d for creating it to end the evergoing onslaught of oblong oakwood accessories.
Word Count: 714

Opossum, Opossum (nature poem)
Opossum, Opossum
You beautiful creature
Sitting
On my back porch
Eating some garbage (5)

Opossum, Opossum
Of such great appearance
Should not
Live by yourself
In a cold alley (10)

Opossum, Opossum
One of your babies
Has joined
Your feast of trash
How many are there? (15)

Opossum, Opossum
You and your young one
Really
Made a quick meal
Out of that garbage (20)

Opossum, Opossum
You are so elegant
But, still
The next trash bag?
Are you serious? (25)

Opossum, Opossum
Another one is here
It looks
Like a female
I think it's hungry (30)

Opossum, Opossum
You really have to stop
Because
The whole porch floor
Smells like a pigsty (35)

Opossum, Opossum
Never mind what I said
You are
Putrid and gross
Now please leave my porch (40)

Opossum, Opossum
Did you even hear me?
I guess
There will be no
Avoidance of you (45)
Line Count: 45

The Most Beautiful Thing
Last year, I went to Puerto Rico for Christmas. I had already been there when I was about six years old, but my family decided that we go again. My parents wanted to go back to the small, rustic resort that we stayed in called “La Finca” (the farm). It is on Vieques, a small island right off the mainland, only accessible by ferry. One of the main attractions for us was the bio-bay, a body of water inhabited by trillions of microscopic, bioluminescent organisms called dinoflagellates. The dinoflagellates (which are 1/500th of an inch), when moved or disturbed, emit an eerie, blue light for one tenth of a second. The bay has a million per gallon.
At about 9 pm, we were driven down a sketchy mud road that had been eroded by recent a heavy rainfall to a small entrance into the water. We were met by a friendly tour guide who helped us into kayaks and pushed us into the bay. I had been to the bio-bay before, but most of the memory was overcome by that of being stung by a jellyfish while swimming in the dark water.
As soon as my kayak paddle cut into the water, a cloud of light seemingly attached itself onto it and followed until the paddle came out of the water. I looked behind at the trail my kayak was making, and there were glowing streaks following the small wake. As I got out deeper, the lights became brighter and more intense; I dipped my hand in the water and it was surrounded with glowing clouds of specks. As animals swam beneath, they left fish-shaped trails of glowing bioluminescence in the dark water.
The tour guide told us to dip our hands in the water and then hold them up in the air. As the water dripped down my hand, shimmering spots of light gracefully fell down my arm. It is absolutely impossible to describe it in words. It was almost as if I was on the planet, Pandora, from Avatar. I remember in the forest at one point, everywhere that Jake Sully steps, a glowing circle appears on the ground - that’s the closest comparison I can make.
Word Count: 358

The Best Weather
The best weather I have ever experienced was when I went to Panama in eighth grade. On the first day that we got to our isolated house in the middle of the jungle, it started to rain the hardest that I have ever seen. The best part about it was that it was in the middle of the day, and it was about 75 degrees. I love rain storms, so it was already pretty awesome to me, but the fact that it was also super warm put the cherry on top of the sundae. The aggressive pounding of the rain contrastded with the peaceful landscape to create a beautiful balance; the view from the house was rich with tropical flowers of all colors and palm trees, with the ocean a little ways behind it. The sounds of the jungle wildlife could also be heard through the storm; whoops from the numerous howler monkeys that inhabited the jungle next to the house wafted through the trees, and chirpy yelps of birds that I had never heard before accompanied the harsh rainfall and the grass and leaves. The rest of the week after the storm was hot and humid, with at least two short tropical rainstorms each day. It was the perfect temperature; not too hot, not too cold, and wonderfully humid (we could just cool down in the ocean if we got too hot). I even saw a sloth in the wild while taking out the compost. It was truly the best week of weather that i had ever had, but nothing will ever come close to topping that first rain storm.

Response to Essays
A major idea that was evident in these three essays was that everything meets its end, and most, if not all of the time it benefits something larger. The idea is introduced to me in “River Driftwood”. The essay is about death and the food chain; how “One thing is made the prey of another”. I liked how Jewett pointed out that being eaten is less honorable than having one's identity preserved after death. She explains that although it is less “consolable”, it happens to everything. Although humans don't get eaten by anything, the rule applies to them in a different way: “the life in us now will be necessary to the making of [an angel]by and by.” The point is that we are going to be used to make something bigger than ourselves.
“The American Forests” explores this idea further; Nearly everything can fall prey to something else. John Muir talks about the beauty of the natural forest, and that “The Indians with stone axes could do them no more harm than could gnawing beavers and browsing moose.” To me, it depicts the Native Americans as a part of nature, coexisting with it as moose and beavers do. Then the European explorers came and cut away nature to make plantations for economic prosperity. I noticed that Muir mentioned stone axes of the Indians and steel axes of the white man; it depicts the newcomers as artificial beings of destruction, because even stone axes are natural; steel is not something found in the wild. The line, “any fool can destroy trees” also stands out to me; it means that it is not meaningful and doesn't really require any appreciation for anything to cut down a tree. This essay showed the more negative side of the idea that everything comes to an end for the better of something else.
Thoreau's essay, “Walking”, relates to Muir's point of man's destruction of nature for personal gain. Thoreau writes of how he can walk up to twenty miles from his his house without encountering establishment. Because I live in the city, I can't really relate to Thoreau's beliefs, as I have never lived anywhere else. Thoreau worries that “Walking over the surface of God’s earth shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman’s grounds.” 150 years of development resulted in his prediction to become true in many areas, especially Chicago and other big cities. The destruction of wilderness is common to build cities and property, and I don't think that there's any going back. Like Muir said, “During a man’s life only saplings can be grown, in the place of the old trees—tens of centuries old—that have been destroyed.”
Word Count: 447

Snowbound Response
I really liked this piece, mainly because of the vivid imagery it provides to set the scene and the mood.  In the first stanza, the emotion and feeling that is explained is very clear. I like the explanation of the harsh cold, describing it as “A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite shut out.” It does a good job of setting up the scene with the mood and climate.
I also think the author does a good job of illustrating a sense of franticness with the description of the preparation for the storm. I noticed how in the second stanza, all of the things that are happening are happening at the same time. It also explains all the animals making commotion in their respective stall, and it reminds me of Rainforest Cafe. They have a bunch of animatronic animals that make sounds and move around scattered around the cafe, and when the fake jungle rainstorm plays, all of them freak out. The description of the storm hitting is also explained in an interesting way. Whittier describes it as ominous, but also beautiful; he talks about the grey night and compares the snowdrifts on the window to ghosts, but he also compares the storm to a dance and “as zig-zag, wavering to and fro”.
Word Count: 217

To Build a Fire Response
The main thing I noticed while reading “To Build a Fire” was that Jack London does a very good job at making the reader feel uncomfortable. The way he describes the bitter cold and the toll that it’s taking on the man generates a feeling of unpleasantness and tension (for me, at least). The lines about how the man has to continue to beat his hand on his chest to keep it from going too numb really get to me, because in my opinion, being numb is one of the most uncomfortable things ever. Also, the “crystal beard of the color and solidity of amber was increasing its length on his chin” is not meant to evoke a pleasant feeling in the reader.
What is also interesting to me is that I felt more uncomfortable while reading about the cold, then man seemed to be when he was actually in the cold. I like the idea of a character with no name or depth, because I’ve never really seen it before in a short story (but I’m sure there are many). I think with a depthless character, the story becomes more about the conditions or the situation, and less about the character’s inner conflict. The most memorable line for me  was “There were lots worse ways to die,” when talking about freezing to death. It seems that freezing would be terrible and painful, but the story made it seem like it just involves falling into a deep sleep.
Word Count: 247

The Snowstorm Response
I think it’s cool how Emerson personifies the storm as an artist, furiously working on his granite sculptures. I find it interesting that he sees the snow as marble and stone, hanging “Parian wreaths” and building columns around trees. It brings to mind an ancient Roman or Greek city, with colosseums and pillars and statues of snow rather than marble.
To me, the length of the poem effects the scene that I see in my mind; It’s only 28 lines, so the snow storm doesn’t seem like it lasts a long time. It gives a sense of swiftness, with the snow arriving, “announced by all the trumpets of the sky”. It comes in quickly and furiously carves out sculptures and architecture with snow, coating everything in shimmering white fluff, and even building a turret. As soon as the sun comes out, it leaves its art. If the poem was longer, I would probably visualize a long, dark storm, unpleasant and cold with endless barrages of snow, like in Snowbound. Whittier and Emerson have a different perspectives of snow; Emerson sees it as an artist quickly making sculptures out of the landscape, and Whittier describes it as an ominous, depressing cloud of cold.
Word  Count: 202

Nature Response
It is impossible for me to understand how Emerson’s appreciation for nature could be so intense. It’s most likely because he lived almost 200 years ago, was older, and way smarter than me. I also think it’s because of the environment in which I grew up. Like I mentioned in the essay responses, I grew up in a modern city, so I do not have as many experiences with the wilderness as Thoreau or Emerson. Emerson describes being in nature as becoming another being. He talks about how he becomes invisible, and that he “[sees] all” when he stands in the wilderness. I’ve been to a lot of tropical places, and that’s what I think of when reading this. It is very relaxing to just stand on the grass and let the sun sink in, especially on the beach. Also, I would rather be hanging out in the jungle without any cares than where I am right now, that’s for sure. Emerson uses a lot of strong phrases to describe his connection to nature, such as being a “parcel of God,” and “no disgrace, no calamity... which nature cannot repair.” I think I connect most to his statement that in a thousand years, the guest still won’t be sick of the woods. I think this applies perfectly tp the jungle.
Word Count: 220

Thanatopsis Response
Bryant and Emerson clearly have similar views of nature. In the poem, Bryant makes the thought of death almost sound like an illness, and nature is the cure: “Go forth under the open sky, and list to Nature's teachings.” I like the idea that one shouldn’t be afraid of dying and leaving this world, but they should embrace their becoming a part of it. Bryant’s solution for fearing death is to go become familiar with what one is going to coexist with once he or she dies. He also mentions that kings and honorable people who have lived in the past all died some time, and in death one joins their ranks; everyone is equal, because there will be nothing to make you more or less respectable. Bryant also points out that if no one even notices that you die, or no one even cares, it doesn’t matter because they’re all going to die too. The last few lines conclude the poem nicely, reminding the reader that once it’s time to die, don’t go sulkily “like the quarry-slave at night, scourged to his dungeon.” Embrace death for the comfort and closure that it brings, “like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”
Word Count: 211