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by Avi Wisnia

In southern California, below Interstate 8 and west along the Mexican border, in the middle of the desert just beyond an arroyo, rests an ancient intaglio, a horse carved out of stone ("Horse" 401). If by chance you were to come across such a natural relic, perhaps you would first take a picture. Perhaps you would initially approach to get a closer look. Perhaps you would immediately run your fingers over the coarse, intricate indentations of the nose, the ears, the hooves. However, when writer Barry Lopez first came upon the stone horse, he did nothing. He simply stood in his place. Still. Silent. And he did not just happen upon the horse; he had been looking for it. Yet, at the sight of it, Lopez recalls being "startled, and that I held my breath" (401). This is not the only instance in which nature inspires awe in the writer. It occurs again in "Orchids on the Volcanoes" as he watches sleeping Flamingos drift on a lagoon in Isla Rabida, an island of the Galapagos. It occurs again in "Learning to See" as he witnesses a vivid "fleeting pattern of light falling at dusk on a windbreak of trees in Mitchell, Oregon" (236). In every encounter, Lopez observes nature with passionate reverence and spirituality that renders him speechless. But he does not write merely to relay his reaction. Barry Lopez wants us to replenish our dwindling respect for nature by sharing in the experience that nature affords us.

Through his naturalist essays, Lopez restrains that immediate urge we have to pet the horsey, take a Polaroid, and move on. He persuades us to appreciate the urge. He strives to teach us about the inherently liberating spirit of nature, about how in just experiencing one moment with nature "every troubled thread in a human spirit might .. . .[uncoil] and [sort] itself into graceful order" (63). But we cannot learn anything from nature with the intent of laying our hands on it, claiming it, controlling it. We can learn only when we accept the role of witness. The essays of Barry Lopez instruct us in the art of bearing witness, of being speechless.

The brilliance of Barry Lopez lies in his ability to convey his reactions so convincingly and earnestly that they leave us speechless in awe of nature. Lopez witnesses the breathtaking beauty of the dry expanse of Galapagos plains, "a lay of rubble like a storm-ripped ocean frozen at midnight" (52). This portrait vividly captivates the imagination and poetically appeals to the intellect, enhancing our appreciation for the landscape Lopez lays before us. He consistently brushes his observations with tender imagery that bears the signature of his own intimacy with nature. In "Apologia," as he travels from Oregon to Indiana, Lopez stops his car again and again to remove dead animals from the highway, "each animal. . . like a solitary child's shoe in the road" (114). In one instance, "he gently relocates a doe by the petals of her ears" (115). Each episode finds Lopez mourning another part of nature which nature has lost. After experiencing the violent deaths and watching Lopez deal with them with such compassionate sensitivity, we are no longer desensitized to the crushed creatures we often encounter ourselves and disregard without a second thought. We become suddenly, silently conscious of our destructive carelessness.

Yet, being speechless is only the first step. Lopez's obsession with nature makes us aware of our connection to it. This obsession manages to transcend mere fascination because Barry Lopez does not set himself apart from the nature he regards, but harbors a passionate sense of kinship with it. In disagreement with the contemporary mentality of detachment, Lopez writes about nature with a sense of belonging. With each new location, he experiences a connection to nature because of something timeless that came before, something that can only be described as history. His essays are like travelogues of places he has been and nature he has observed, all thoroughly detailed. In fact, each location marks a historical connection of sorts.

When Lopez stops for a lifeless rabbit on Nebraska 806, or the doe, north of Pinedale in western Wyoming on US 189, below the Gros Ventre Range, he emphasizes the land's implicit history and connection to humanity. The landmarks read like gravesites in "Apologia." Each "dark blister" he removes from the road leaves a tombstone of blood and flesh, a monument to the desecration of the relationship between humans and nature (113). Lopez also witnesses the Galapagos enduring their own devastation: "The nobility that may occasionally mark a scarred human face gleams here" (52). Recalling the land's endurance against the passing of time, these scars celebrate an existence that predates the influence of man. In comparison, our legacy is insignificant; yet, sadly, it can be traced in the scars we leave behind, scars of human destruction embedded by those too ignorant or oblivious to the land's intrinsic connection to every living thing that touches its face. With a perspective that transcends the immediate, Lopez suggests that we cannot distance ourselves from an environment that "anchor[s] the earliest threads of human history" (399). His cherished relationship with nature resonates with the acknowledgment that both land and time came before us, and will continue without us. Yet, through history, Lopez encourages us to realize that our lives are invested in nature and we must therefore witness nature's indifference with respect.

Lopez's connection to nature extends its roots back to his childhood. As an adolescent growing up on a farm in the Calabasas hills of California, he got used to having lush landscapes and wild animals entertain his imagination and capture his soul. In a rare shift of focus to himself, Lopez composed a quartet of recollection essays about his childhood. These essays are full of nostalgia, supported by an atmospheric narrative set in a hazy, silver halo of memory. The words themselves are lightweight, buoyed by alliteration and simplicity, invoking a sense of floating over the past. In "Theft," Lopez recalls his search for Aztec artifacts in a Macon County riverbed in the typical, straightforward style of the quartet compositions. His success in finding the relics elicits the simple proclamation: "What Aztecs had once held, I now held" (267). The words, small and succinct, do not hint at any detail. However, Lopez suddenly breaks form, so that the essay unexpectedly continues:

The thought worked on me that the confluence here was preordained, a cabalistic power was inherent in this simple act. In taking possession of these two pieces of pottery, I had transcended the intrusive nuisance of insects and heat, the threat of snakes and poisonous plants. (267)

He has transcended the trivial present by connecting with history through meager pieces of pottery. The use of more complex language here alludes to a greater perspective in which Lopez discovers nature's authority over humankind. The artifacts that connect Lopez to something immense and powerful manage to dwarf him by comparison. His memories, simple and ethereal, reflect the human fantasy that the world is ours to control. Holding the artifacts in his hands, he grasped that such authority lay quite out of his reach. "Someday men will have the tools to confirm what they believe happened here. . .before we came along," his uncle tells young Lopez. "And then in another time they will talk about us, about what we did, or what we might have believed. We make sense of ourselves as a people through history" (268). That day at the riverbed, Lopez begins to see what his uncle only started to say: history reveals that we make sense of ourselves as a people living symbiotically with our environment.

His childhood essays incorporate this larger perspective, teaching us not to assume authority, but to submit to it. In "Death," Lopez presents a memory in which an unprovoked black widow spider bites his mother, prompting her intense phobia, as well as her contempt, for the animal. The black widow, writes Gordon D. Grice, embodies the ultimate "vision of evil. . . [to] a God-fearing country woman with a ten-foot pole" (317). The reference is to Grice's own mother, who often armed herself with such weapons in defense against the spider, keeping nature at a safe distance of ten feet. Yet, it is this type of reaction which Lopez laments. In Grice's essay, "The Black Widow," the animal symbolizes our contempt for that which we cannot understand. About the widow web's random, chaotic pattern, he concludes, "We want the world to be an ordered room, but in a corner of that room there hangs an untidy web" (317). Our inability to understand nature frustrates our conceited human desire for supreme control. Consequently, we choose either to disrespect nature or ignore it, as both authors' mothers do, keeping it at a bearable distance. However, Lopez does not regard the spider that bit his mother as "evil," confining it to one easily comprehensible picture, as Grice does. Lopez includes nature not as a device, but as a character. He allows the spider to stand on its own, as a dynamic and uninhibited creature, to help portray the moral implications that arise from the relationship between nature and humans. Our stubborn defiance of nature disguises an unconsciousness that only leads to destruction.

Lopez consequently tends to use the essay as a subtle medium of reprimand. Yet, in "The Stone Horse," he confronts those who disrespect nature with uncharacteristically direct anger (118). He aims his pen at such criminals:

The vandals, the few who crowbar rock art off the desert's walls, who dig up graves, who punish the ground that holds intaglios, are people who devour history. Their self-centered scorn, their disrespect for ideas and images beyond their ken, create the awful atmosphere of loose ends in which totalitarianism thrives, in which the past is merely curious or wrong (406).

What upsets Lopez is a growing conviction that the horse is not safe from destruction: "I prayed that no infidel would ever find that horse." Lopez's experience has left him jaded and even disappointed in humanity (406). As he removes the animals from their stony deathbeds in "Apologia," he condemns those who recklessly dash the "white silk threads of life" across a country road (114). "We treat the attrition of lives on the road like the attrition of lives in war: horrifying, unavoidable, justified" (116). Lopez alludes to the culprits: ignorance and impatience and ultimately unconsciousness. His writing therefore implores us to protect nature, and moreover to feel the need to protect it. Through language, Lopez finds relief in being able to process the destruction he encounters. His essays strive to restore his faith in people by encouraging his audience to be speechless, to recognize their connection to nature through history, and most of all, to understand the importance of its preservation.

Destruction constantly provides a striking contrast to the message of preservation Lopez professes in his essays. In "Learning to See," he tackles this issue of preservation vs. destruction head on. As he embarks upon a research expedition, he struggles with the scenario that he may need to hunt or kill animals for the sake of gathering data that will eventually protect them against oil development. It is the ultimate irony: in order to preserve, one must destroy-what Lopez recognizes as "the wild conflict that defines life" (64). This conflict implies that it is not only human greed and ignorance that inhibit our relationship with nature. Lopez confesses that he, too, is guilty of such crimes, such destruction. After relocating numerous dead animals from the road in "Apologia," he comes dangerously close to losing his own life upon swerving to avoid hitting a bird and losing control of his car. He survived. The bird did not. It is impossible to refrain from overstepping our boundaries as humans coexisting with nature. Even against the greatest intentions, destruction is unavoidable. And yet Lopez does not offer a solution. He admits, "Our knowledge of life is slim. The undisturbed landscapes are rapidly dwindling. And no plan has yet emerged for a kind of wealth that will satisfy all people" (62). But in "Apologia," we see his attempt to ease the tension by coexisting consciously with nature. Lopez does not attempt to rectify the desecration of nature; rather, in acknowledging his place in it, he apologizes, one dead body at a time.

His apology speaks to a hope that is implicit in his writing. In his essays Barry Lopez always reveals hope through nature-an orchid, a stone horse, a stretch of land. He knows that we cannot stop all destruction; for if we had that power, we would be able to control the beauty and mystery that is nature. "An understanding that what is beautiful and mysterious belongs to no one, is in fact a gift," Lopez quietly proclaims (65). However, we can regain our sensitivity, our compassion, and our intimacy. Instead of trying to harness nature, we need only to let it inspire-just as it did for the Quechan civilization whose stone-carved homage still rests in Southern California below Interstate 8. Similarly, the writing of Barry Lopez is his tribute, his way of giving back to nature. It embodies a hope that explains why nature repeatedly "startles" Lopez: amid all the sorrowful destruction that he encounters, the moments of speechlessness remind him of his spiritual intimacy with nature and the purpose of its preservation. By rendering us speechless, he strips us of our self-centered distractions and directs our attention to the possibilities of our own unbridled creativity and spirituality. In "Orchids on the Volcanoes," Lopez again consciously observes nature and its subtle message of promise:

A blue-footed booby chick, embraceable in its white down, stands squarely before an ocean breeze, wrestling comically with its new wings, like someone trying to fold a road map in a high wind. An emaciated sea lion pup, rudely shunned by the other adults, waits with resolute cheer for a mother who clearly will never return from the sea. You extend your fingers here to the damp, soft rims of orchids, blooming white on the flanks of dark volcanoes. (53)

Lopez invites us to partake in the spiritual connection we share with nature and history, which awards us both independence in our world and compelling attachment to it. He bids us to notice the "complexity of [nature's] beauty" (54), and-like the effect it continues to have on Barry Lopez time and time again-to let it render us speechless.

Works Cited

Grice, Gordon G. "The Black Widow." Encounters: Essays for Exploration and Inquiry. Ed. Pat C. Hoy II and Robert DiYanni. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2000. 313-317.

Lopez, Barry. "The Stone Horse." Hoy II. 399-406.

Lopez, Barry. About This Life. New York: Vintage, 1998.

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