Nature’s Almanac
Nature is an almanac. Or the Weather Channel or weather forecast or however you want to describe it. It is easy enough to dismiss those who claim to be able to tell when winter is going to be especially harsh or there is going to be an early spring as crackpots until effective imagery explain it clearly:
“One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a mark thaw, is the spring… A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges.”
Color Imagery
The issue of conversation of wild animals is portrayed effectively through imagery related specifically to the power of color. The precise introduction of a specific color image can transform an otherwise mundane description into a work of aesthetic and thematic beauty:
“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes – something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”
Thinking Like a Mountain
The most memorable bit of imagery associated with the book is the author’s advisory regarding how to approach nature conservancy: to think like a mountain. The mountain is symbolic of an entire ecosystem who protectively overlooks all who fall within its shadow equally. The concept is put into clearer terms through the imagery of the rancher, his herd and the predators threatening them:
"The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf's job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea.”
Round River
The author relates a story from the tall tales of Paul Bunyan about his discovery of the Round River. This is a river which flows around into itself, creating an inexorable and incessant current which never ends. The imagery of energy produced by the Round River becomes an extended metaphor for the circle of life and the circle of life is, in turn, an extended metaphor for ecological conservation.
