Grace Goodley-Outside Reading: Edna St. Vincent Millay "Mariposa"

 In this piece, Edna St. Vincent Millay, a prominent deep ecologist, illustrates the beautifully romantic yet also morbid view of love and life. Utilizing the butterfly to illustrate how beautiful yet short life can be. The butterfly can also be seen to represent the changes we make within our lives. Using language like transient and wander, creates a dream-like feel in the poem. This dream-like sense is later countered with the use of phrases such as “suffer me to take your hand, suffer me to cherish you”. This strategic word choice creates a stark change in the feeling of the overall short poem. I think that this notion of our desire to love and give love as humans, even though we know our time here is short, can be connected with nature in a sense. I think that it is something that we have strayed away from. Adopting this view of the world that is dream-like yet also realistic can stand to have us appreciate nature in our day-to-day lives. Looking at the world with such intention, as Edna St. Vincent Millay does, can push us to allow more meaningful connections with the natural world to take place.

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