strange & chosen pairings

I have been reading some of Kay Ryan’s poetry the last couple of weeks. Anecdotal Evidence introduced me to her work a couple of years ago by quoting her poem, “Things Shouldn’t be so Hard.” Recently, I remembered this poem, which is still my favorite of Ryan’s, when a close friend’s father died and started looking at some of her other work. Now, I know very little about poetry, but have been enjoying Ryan’s poetry. While reading “Paired Things” I was struck by one of my favorite Chestertonian themes - the contingency of property pairings in nature. Her poem,

Who, who had only seen wings,

could extrapolate the

skinny sticks of things

birds use for land,

the backward way they bend,

the silly way they stand?

And who, only studying

birdtracks in the sand,

could think those little forks

had decamped on the wind?

So many paired things seem odd.

Who ever would have dreamed

the broad winged raven of despair

would quit the air and go

bandylegged upon the ground,

a common crow?

(From Flamingo Watching, 1994. Also in her new collection The Best of It, 2010.)

Compare this to Chesterton in Orthodoxy,

I have explained that the fairy tales rounded in me two convictions; first, that this world is a wild and startling place, which might have been quite different, but which is quite delightful; second, that before this wildness and delight one may well be modest and submit to the queerest limitations of so queer a kindness. But I found the whole modern world running like a high tide against both my tendernesses; and the shock of that collision created two sudden and spontaneous sentiments, which I have had ever since and which, crude as they were, have since hardened into convictions.

First, I found the whole modern world talking scientific fatalism; saying that everything is as it must always have been, being unfolded without fault from the beginning. The leaf on the tree is green because it could never have been anything else. Now, the fairy-tale philosopher is glad that the leaf is green precisely because it might have been scarlet. He feels as if it had turned green an instant before he looked at it. He is pleased that snow is white on the strictly reasonable ground that it might have been black. Every colour has in it a bold quality as of choice; the red of garden roses is not only decisive but dramatic, like suddenly spilt blood. He feels that something has been done.

(from chapter four, “The Ethics of Elfland,” bolding is mine)

Chesterton and Ryan notice similar phenomena, but Chesterton adds that this strangeness of pairing has the character of being chosen or being done. He senses choice behind the composition and thereby finds magic in the mundane.