Seeing by Annie Dillard

Dillard’s writing is brimming with overwhelmingly imaginative and evocative descriptions, one of which is exemplified by the fifth last paragraph. The paragraph could almost be part of a poem. Dillard packs it with musical alliterations, such as ‘skittery schools’ and ‘flesh-flake, feather, bone’. She describes her sights and thoughts while sitting on a sycamore bridge during sunset. We can vividly imagine the silvery flashes of fish by her description, "one fish, then another, turned for a split second across the current and flash!’". The tone is of excitement and marvel, which in turn energizes the reader and makes the read that much more interesting. Her comparisons are quite extraordinary and unconventional. She compares the creek life to a ‘new world’. Images of the milky way spring to mind when she compares the ‘linear flashes’ to ‘stars being born at random down a rolling scroll of time.’

A lot of what she says is indirect- instead of using the word itself, she describes it by a comparison of it to something else. Then she uses that comparison and links it to another vivid image. It’s all very meta, and the way she structured it is ingenious. The use of verbs instead of adjectives to describe the scenes breathes life into the writing. She then goes on to describe herself as a part of the nature, as the ‘‘lip of a fountain the creek filled forever, the leaf in the zephyr”. She and nature are one, and we realize what she was trying to say in her previous paragraph, where she mentions a ‘kind of seeing that involves letting go’- leaving her ‘transfixed and emptied’. She is emptied of her own soul and has merged into her surroundings.