'Sea-shell and Leaf Alike'

As the human world seems to grow more chaotic, as though entropy were finally triumphant, I look for evidence of pattern and design in nature and among writers I admire.In his short story “The Bicycle Rider,” Guy Davenport arranges a still life evoking order, including two shells: “A glass jar of acorns. A nautilus shell. Shale slab with a fossil gingko leaf. A Greek coin from Metaponton in Sicily. A snail shell.” In the same story, Davenport writes: “Luck has nothing to do with happiness, which comes from rhythms, order, clarity.” In his poem “For Basil Bunting,” Davenport celebrates the spiral, which you will find everywhere if you take the time to look: “to be Greek as a curl on a flat cheek “the coil of white the Ismene lily “spirals, hound’s tail when his nose is down “snail shell, paper nautilus wavetop scroll “ear, weather, world this shape of turning” In his essay “Marianne Moore,” Davenport says the poet loved things “cunningly made.” See her poem “The Paper Nautilus.” Here…