Wander-Thrush
by David Crews

Ra Press, 2018

Reviewed by JENNY WONG

When I turned the first pages of David Crews’s Wander-Thrush, a book composed of three lyric essays, I expected facts; I expected dates; I expected trees. What I didn’t expect was a guided poetic hike through the Adirondacks. Each lyric essay became a different trail around the High Peaks lined with factual trail markers, historical sites, and snippets of prose that hint at the sheer beauty held in that wildness. 

At the end of the book, under “Notes & Further Reading,” Crews lists the inspirations in both form and content for his work, reminders of those subtle forks in the trail that promise something else to explore. Crews says “Legacy, in a spiritual sense of the word, does suggest the giving or handing down of some great wisdom. To that end it feels most fitting to consider the land, the wilderness, and the experiences one has in it as a gift—always passing from one hiker to the next, always bringing people together.” Similarly, in writing, many people have come before, played with these forms, and it’s up to us to come along afterwards, absorb, re-create, and make them our own for someone else to discover.

The first essay, “On Russell M.L. Carson and Peaks and People of the Adirondacks,” opens with a question: “Why climb a mountain?” This is the technical hike, the lyric trek where Crews gears and equips his readers for the journey that is Wander-Thrush. He guides the reader through background, facts, homage, and history, marked by definitive sections such as “The Book,” “The People,” “The Mountains,” etc. He introduces Russell M. L. Carson, of course, and other individuals, as well as the mountains (Gothics, Haystack, Upper Wolf Jaw, and others) that make up the High Peaks. Underlying Crews’s prose is a passion and a love for this land, which burbles to the surface with the flow and glimmer of his language. I can almost feel it when he says the “boot rhythms hit with heartbeat.”

“Retreat, and a Voice for Wilderness” opens with boots on the land. Peaks and people introduced previously are woven in, reappearing like familiar landmarks from new angles and perspectives. Along the way are passages and quotes placed like signposts that, like any good signage, are preludes of things to come. For example, a personal story about a missing summit sign leads to an examination of how easily people take words for their own, and how easily humanity takes resources from this world. Here is the moral consciousness, the warning, the call to consider, “How can anyone preserve wilderness or even conceptualize what preservation means in a post-information age?”  In this time of information inundation, words and images are captured and consumed with ease, saved at the push of a button. These concepts of abundance, of permanence, can’t be casually applied to the natural world. There is a bringing into nature, not with abandon, but with caution, to view the wilderness as a place where we can still re-assemble ourselves, but only if we listen to and preserve what is offered.

“Presence, Birding, Hiking in the Woods” is the lyric essay where experience is distilled, becoming a saturation of wildlife, greenery, and horizons. Crews gives us a glimpse into those writer moments, shows us his places where the scenery sings, and lets the reader explore the Adirondacks through his eyes. The structure of the work changes form, becoming a physical landscape with words meandering the length and width of the page, forming and reforming between poetry and prose:

The bare trees have a thousand limbs and their geometries stretch through the nighttime sky.

here
and there
where horizon slips
into a smoldering heat
aglow in a place
remembered by those
who come to it.

There is much that gleams in this final section, and while Crews paints a beautiful walk through the interior of his memories, inspirations, and reflections, I find there is also an urging to not only take his word for it, but to seek out our own beauty. Too often we rush to view the spots that others have pointed out instead of finding our own places in which we can hold our breath in the moment. Everyone travels differently, feels in different places. Crews reminds us that despite guidebooks and reviews, nothing compares to the discovery of those spaces that seem made just for us. All we need is a good wander.