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The first essay, Upstream, is my favorite. I have thought often about her lines:

You must not ever stop being whimsical.

And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.

Wow! That’s heavy truth! In this time of unease and chaos, I’ve thought of those lines. I think of my children, and I’ve shared them. What else must be said? Keep yourself fed and healthy?

Her essays on Emerson, Whitman, Wordsworth, and even Poe made me feel back in school, trying to keep up. However, a few of the lines chosen from Whitman are reminders of the power of his poetry. “I celebrate myself, | And what I assume you shall assume, | For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.�

After the literary essays, Mary returns to her favorite subject, the natural world. Some of the essays I read in other books, but I hadn’t read Who Cometh Here? And Ropes. I was struck by the final lines in her essay about the Bear that walked into town and then was chased away.

“Someday maybe we’ll wise up and remember what you were: hopeless ambassador of a world that returns now only in poets� dreams.� God bless the hopeless ambassadors of our dreams.