Anchorage

In the poem “Anchorage”, Lorde describes nature like a physical being, active in the world and shaping the environment, yet simultaneously separate from humans sometimes. When Lorde describes the town saying, “…underneath the concrete is the cooking earth and above that, air…” I feel like that expresses the separateness of nature from humans. We walk on the earth, but through a concrete medium and experience the clouds and sky from a distance as well, existing concurrently and affecting one another without necessarily crossing paths. Sometimes this medium is broken, but not without disturbing the stability of life that has that way of settling into its own routine rhythm. The tone of the poem seems to be philosophical in its nature because of the way the narrator is simply walking down a street with someone and describing the environment, which in turn evokes thoughts about life. An example of this is the old woman, lost in agonizing thought, that they pass by; the actual act of passing by is not just an unconscious action but one that was done because as Lorde writes, “What can we say that would make us understand better then we already do?” Thus there is no point in stopping, speaking to this woman and finding out what is wrong because they understand and anything else would just be an additional decoration on reality. This reminds me of what we spoke about in class regarding the universal language of emotion. They read this old woman and do not need to know more, because there is nothing else to know then what she already expresses being there as she is. I feel like most people have this communication with nature and often escape to it to get away from things. Perhaps then if people spoke less and simply experienced more together, we could be as happy as we are in nature with each other.