Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Gary Snyder’s "Old Woman Nature" is a meditation on the cycles of life and death, presented through the personification of nature as an ancient woman who quietly tends to the business of decay and renewal. The poem draws from the natural world’s unsentimental processes, where death is not a tragedy but an integral part of existence. Snyder, steeped in Zen Buddhism and deep ecology, embraces this perspective, portraying nature’s role with reverence, pragmatism, and a touch of dark humor.

The poem opens with an assertion: “Old Woman Nature / naturally has a bag of bones / tucked away somewhere.” This immediately establishes the poem’s central image—Nature as an old woman with a hidden collection of remains. The casual tone of “naturally” suggests that this is simply the way things are; death is not an aberration but a natural fact. The phrase “a whole room full of bones!” adds a slightly playful exaggeration, as if the poet is letting the reader in on an open secret. Nature does not discard; she accumulates.

The imagery shifts from the hidden “room full of bones” to evidence of death scattered throughout the landscape: “A scattering of hair and cartilage / bits in the woods.” These details are not framed as grotesque but as ordinary, elements of an ongoing cycle. Snyder’s listing of remnants—“A fox scat with hair and a tooth in it. / a shellmound / a bone flake in a streambank.”—grounds the poem in the physical world. The references to fox scat and a shellmound (ancient refuse heaps left by Indigenous people) link the processes of digestion and decomposition with human and animal history alike.

Snyder then introduces a strikingly visceral moment: “A purring cat, crunching / the mouse head first, / eating on down toward the tail—.” The precision of the image forces the reader to confront the raw reality of predation. The cat’s purring adds an eerie contrast—it is content, engaged in an instinctual act that is neither cruel nor sentimental. This detail reinforces the idea that death is not a disruption but a continuation of life.

In the final stanza, the poem’s tone softens: “The sweet old woman / calmly gathering firewood in the / moon . . .” The old woman, now more fully embodied, is no longer merely a collector of bones but a caretaker, preparing warmth and sustenance. The ellipsis leaves the scene open-ended, inviting the reader to linger on the image. The transition from the stark reality of death to the domestic act of gathering firewood suggests a cycle of renewal—what is burned will warm, and what is consumed will nourish.

The closing lines, “Don’t be shocked, / She’s heating you some soup,” bring the poem full circle. The reader, initially positioned as an observer of nature’s unsentimental processes, is now implicated—nature is feeding us, sustaining us, even as it collects its bones. The reassurance of “don’t be shocked” suggests that the reader may have recoiled from the imagery, but Snyder urges us to accept this reality. The warmth of the soup contrasts with the cold imagery of bones, reinforcing the poem’s central theme: life and death are not opposites but interwoven aspects of a single process.

Snyder’s reference to Kurozuka, a Kabuki play featuring a demoness who lures travelers only to reveal herself as a collector of bones, adds another layer of meaning. In the play, the demoness is both terrifying and tragic—her hunger and her accumulation of bones are simply what she is. Snyder’s Old Woman Nature echoes this archetype but strips away the fear, replacing it with understanding. Nature is not monstrous for collecting bones; it is simply part of what she does.

"Old Woman Nature" challenges the reader to reconsider their relationship with mortality. By weaving together elements of the natural world, folklore, and everyday life, Snyder presents death as neither horrifying nor tragic but as something to be acknowledged, even welcomed. The old woman, like nature itself, is neither cruel nor kind—just inevitable. In this way, the poem becomes not just an observation but an invitation to see death as part of the continuous, unbroken rhythm of life.

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