Against the supposed Modern bifurcation of nature and culture, the expressivity of the self can only be understood fully as it transcends itself into nature. Yet, this transcendence is not seamless and the manner in which nature can be approached remains a question. To approach nature is already to assume a distance from nature, a place outside nature; no such place exists, each self is already emplaced in nature. Nevertheless, the distance from nature is not an illusion. The self that rises to the level of self-reflectivity experiences an alienation from nature occasioning and making possible any approach to it. This relation is explored through a reading of a poem by the contemporary Irish poet Nigel McLoughlin who speaks of this in terms of happenings “when your back is turned”. Language in alienating the self from nature discloses nature as anterior to the self, as a prior articulation expressed before the self can account for it. But while language is an alienation from nature, it is at the same time a return to it. Linguistic performance aims to bring the real to articulation, to express the expression of nature in a manner which is true to it. For this to happen requires attention whereby the self regains the rhythm of natural motion and discovers itself in place. Essential to such a movement of language is reasoning itself, understood as the giving of account, both as a theoretical pursuit and as a becoming responsible.