An Atlas of the Difficult World

In a poem that recreates the abundant land-based beauty of the natural world—the sequoia forests of northern California; the haunted deserts of New Mexico; the vistas of the Grand Canyon; the farms of New England; the “lemon sweep” (Line IX.18) of Nevada’s Yucca Flats—Rich often focuses on the energy and pull of bodies of water: rivers, seas, bays, and supremely, oceans. 

In the poem, the sea symbolizes the powerful ebb and flow of change, which Rich sees as a restless and inexorable flux. Bodies of water thus offer a counterpoint to America’s difficult and troubled history—a history repeating similar moral trespasses from generation to generation. Unlike this seeming ongoing decline, the sea symbolizes the promise of renewal and transformation. 

The sea, then, offers consolation and hope. Much like Walt Whitman, who also found the ebb and flow of bodies of water consoling and inspiring, Rich describes the oceans as “dialectical waters rearing / their wild calm constructs, momentary, ancient” (Lines VIII.15-16). The image is paradoxical: The current is both “wild” and “calm,” and the waves form shapes that are both “momentary” and “ancient.” This element of nature endures no matter what humans do on land, which offers a soothingly distancing