"The Oven Bird" by Robert Frost and "Egrets" by Mary Oliver.
"The Oven Bird" by Robert Frost and "Egrets" by Mary Oliver both creates an image of control. Man's encroachment over nature is apparent in the poem by Robert Frost, as he portrays the image of a bird being unable to determine the change of seasons with her song due to overpowering "dust" from new roads and buildings. The subtle imagery in "Egrets" depicts the commanding effect of nature over man with a person struggling to walk through a closed darkened path only to stumble upon three egrets that are able to softly step over every dark thing currently possessing the person. Although different in how the commanding effect of man and nature is interpreted, both poems, however, call attention to the intricacies of life in nature.
The poem "The Oven Bird" shows how the changing of each of the four seasons, beginning with spring and ending in winter, are determined by a bird. However, the winter season represents more that just cold weather. Winter, in this poem, creates a feeling of depression and intrusion and unlike the spring, is associated with pessimism. Along with the winter season, the bird "says the highway dust is over all," and that "he knows in singing not to sing". The "dust" from the highway that "is over all" represents how nature is being overrun by man's technological advances. The bird ceases to sing because, unlike three other seasons, he is now unable to determine the change in seasons due to the "dust" from man's highways. The last two lines of the poem portray how the bird is uncertain of what to do, "The question that he frames in all but words is what to make of a diminished thing". .
The poem "Egrets" shows quite the opposite illustration of man and nature. Similar to "The Oven Bird," birds, or in this case three beautiful egrets, symbolize nature. However, unlike Frost's poem, the egrets have much more authority over man.
