Nature

Nature has long been a source of inspiration and an object of inquiry for writers and scientists. Graham employs images of nature to underscore humanity's connection to it. By describing the mind in terms of rain, hummingbirds, swallows, leaves, and soil, the speaker shows how human beings are part of the processes of nature. She links these processes to human acts of perception and imagination. The first lines of the poem, for example, liken "The slow overture of rain" to "the unrelenting, syncopated / mind." By comparing the mind with natural processes, Graham binds the mind inextricably to them. The mind functions in an organic way and, like nature, is subject to and defined by all that surrounds it. Like the leaves described in the latter part of the poem, the mind also dies "in pieces." For Graham that is more a reason for celebration than mourning.

Imagination

"Mind...