sna poems, series supplementum #34: new camaldoli fence loop trail

July 23, 2022 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

new camaldoli hermitage, founded in 1959 by camaldolese monks based in italy, sits on a mountain in the santa lucia range overlooking the pacific ocean in big sur, california. it is a vibrant contemplative community of monks with daughter houses in berkeley and san luis obispo.

i have a particular affection for the camaldolese since my spiritual mother‘s teacher was bede griffiths, an english benedictine monk who ended up as superior at saccidananda ashram in tamil nadu, india, which ended up incorporated into the camaldolese order. plus, i’m very keen on the works of one of new camaldoli’s original monks, fr. bruno barnhart, and of the current prior, cyprian consiglio. the hermitage is well worth checking out if you’re in the area or looking for a spectacular place for a retreat.

the fence loop trail winds up beyond the hermitage, and we hadn’t climbed it before our visit a couple weeks ago. a beautiful walk with views of canyon and mountain and ocean and sky. redwoods and granitic rock.

first id of vetchling.

carboniferous

but standing:

a scorched redwood grove

purple pincushions

underfoot—

all god’s creatures hum

clouds rolling below

limbs weary

but the soul refreshed

sna poems, series supplementum # 34: garrapata state park

July 22, 2022July 22, 2022 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

beside hwy 1 in california, just as one descends on big sur from the north, lies garrapata state park and its bluff trail. we went up and down the mazey path along the bluff, enjoying the persuasive breeze and bare sun on the bluffside. and the flowers! clinging to the rock and sand for dear life all around.

in addition, one of the strangest sights i’ve ever come across: on the initial passage out to the bluff side, one comes upon a cove, and as i walked out to the overlook on a dusty path to spy the cove in more detail a massive corpse met my eyes, a whale deceased in the surf, gently tossing. i hesitated to take pictures, but didn’t want to hide the encounter and fall prey to the temptation to romanticize the natural world. it was a pity to see, but the vultures were already getting ready to eat for days, and many other creatures were surely going to be fed for longer. so it’s here, as the last set of pictures at the bottom; don’t scroll all the way down if you’d rather not see, please.

on brighter notes, first id’s of clawberry, sticky monkey flower, scarlet pimpernel, woolly sunflower (“seaside” methinks), and false bindweed (calystegia).

clawberry fingers,

ocean breeze:

spiked fields to the sky

woolly sunflowers

look and see

oiled mammal barges

over ropey roots

false bindweed

curls in the seabreeze

rock in your cove crypt,

deep cut wales

exposed to air and light

sna poems, series anthropocenum #20: san antonio mission

July 20, 2022 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

san antonio de padua mission is 86 acres of the valley of the oaks in california’s central coast, a mission founded by the spanish in 1771. it’s off the beaten path, moreso than the other ca missions at least, and is inside a military base perimeter. very hot and the hills looked over a pretty harsh landscape. beautiful though, and the smell! very different for old wisconsinites from the southeast glacial plains.

had a good self-guided tour. a solid community of devoted parishioners out there, but also realizing they’re all getting older and the young are moving away. who knows? difficult history, but the land held its own and continues. first id’s of spanish clover and a pincushionplant (naverretia, not sure what species).

the spanish clover

is thriving

in anthony’s sun

the steep rounded hills

hard on sky—

sweet scents from garden

sna poems, series anthropocenum #19 (late entry): bender park

July 19, 2022 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

bender park is an apparently fairly developed and now returning to a rewilded state piece of land on lake michigan in oak creek. it abuts the oak creek power plant and there are some precipitous drops down to the lake.

this was a “let’s not go to work just yet” walk from last december. but i lost the pomes i had written shortly thereafter, so i bagged this entry. this morning i went to open up a book i hadn’t looked at since last december and—what do you know—there were the pomes tucked inside marking my page from late last year. so, i thought i’d pull the photos back up and give bender park its due. here we go.

siren call across

the prairie

the asci don’t mind

curls and curves of drift

these grey skies—

grass’s heavy scent

in the juniper,

sparrow call:

thousand-year moments

sna poems, series supplementum #33: muir woods

July 18, 2022 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

after visiting the state natural area muir park in marquette cty, wisconsin, leading a retreat at new camaldoli hermitage in big sur brought us to california. on the way, we stopped in at muir woods to complete the set. i’d been there a couple times before, but is there a way to get tired of seeing a redwood forest?

had a foggy and drizzly start, clearing up by the end of our time there on a couple loops. the redwoods are fantastic of course, but i loved training the eye on the understory to see what was happening and who was living there too. the redwood sorrel (first id) was fantastic—cousin to the yellow wood sorrel we have growing in our front yard but w/ arresting streaked flowers. also saw a pacific wren track a moth thru the air over the path, catch it, then proceed to knock it around under the sorrel canopy for three or four minutes until it stopped fighting, whereupon the wren gulped the moth down. intense!

first id’s too of california hedge nettle, california harebell, autumn hawkbit, california spikenard, american trailplant, a new kind of horsetail (field?), and pacific trillium. whew!

under the sorrel:

moth flapping,

savaged by barred wren

sna poems, #120: muir park

June 29, 2022 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

muir park is a mix of upland and wetland habitats surrounding ennis lake (a spring-fed kettle lake), where john muir made his boyhood home in central wisconsin. fen and bog, oak opening and dry forest etc. a wide variety of species.

it was a real hot day, so we didn’t make it too far what with the kiddos along. but we had a nice hang at the lake, a short walk, and a good view of the very sandy soil—marquette county is located in wisconsin’s central sand hills ecological landscape, a remnant of the sandy bottom of glacial lake wisconsin. worth another visit in cooler weather for sure.

first id of hoary alyssum!

down fox river road

to muir’s home

and lilies like fire

mammal burrow in millenia-old glacial lake wisconsin lake bottom

hot in summer winds:

oaks growing,

nodding thimbleweed

sna poems #119: pan hollow

May 4, 2022 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

pan hollow is, as the dnr website tells us, a flat-bottomed gorge in the baraboo hills, tucked between baxter’s hollow and pine hollow. streams and glades, dry, dry-mesic, and mesic forests throughout. false mermaid, one of the spring ephemerals (and an annual!) lives here along with many bird species and an endangered sedge.

but, i’ll be frank. it was the end of a wonderful and long day of hikes, and i was simply too tired to go very far. so i had a very pleasant walk in a spring snowshower, but didn’t reach the hollow itself, walking along the bluff ridge and tramping a bit thru the woods before heading back. this hollow deserves another visit at some point too, but i was glad to walk it nonetheless.

a lone chickadee

punctuates

the growing snowstorm

here the land descends

but too much

walking for one day

a gutted acorn

and branches

ready to come down

sna poems #118: natural bridge and rockshelter

May 3, 2022 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

my friends, the natural bridge and rockshelter sna has exactly that, a formation cut into the sandstone over millions of years and the largest in the state. excavations done here reveal remains and artifacts dating back to ca. 9,000-8,000 bc. (!) it’s a wonder surrounded by upland oak forests and remnant prairie.

we’d visited before (and my wife, mamie, graciously agreed to be in a few shots for scale), but it’s been too long. the rock shelter is 60′ wide and 30′ deep, but it was late in the day and i simply didn’t have the energy for more pictures. next time (again). it was hard to see all the initials and words carved into the bridge’s base; i’m not a stickler for humans not interacting with natural environments that are being preserved, but the degree of defacement is tough.

up and down and up and down, then some tiny virginia waterleaf just starting out.

for ten-thousand years

we’ve lingered*

in this neighborhood

you’ve sprung out the earth

been festooned

with verdant drapery

ridges and pockmarks

triumphant

over wind, sand, oak

“we’ve lingered” referring to our species, in no way attempting to erase the 200 years of the settler-colonial project in wisconsin.

sna poems, #117: hemlock draw

May 2, 2022 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

hemlock draw is yet another gorge in the baraboo hills. the terms (“draw,” “hollow,” and “gorge” are used fairly interchangeably in the area.) this particular gorge has honey creek running along its bottom between sandstone and conglomerate cliffs.

the draw is named for hemlocks b/c this is another place in the hills where more northerly species of plants (including hemlock) grow in the southern part of wisconsin. it seems this is b/c of the species’ ability to linger along the microclimates of the gorges where cooler conditions have prevailed; communities that died out this far south with the retreat of the glacier were able to hunker down in spots that persisted cooler.

there are sea stacks here from when the whole area was under water, tho’ we didn’t catch them this time as the day was drawing on and legs were getting weary. next time.

first id of yellow-rumped warbler, and some more signs of forb life here than in other spots we walked that day. the bare cliffs are imposing and majestic.

cleared forest, lamb’s ear

and nettles

a new world from rot

yellow-rumped warblers

are chirping

wtih last year’s bear corn

if you made it this far: there was some burn along the top of one ridge, and this hollowed-out snag was still standing precariously, with the glossiest burn all around the interior. smell and touch are absent, but the view was fascinating too.

the rubble ’round the tree’s base.

sna poems, #116: pine hollow

April 28, 2022 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

a winding rural road up one of the baraboo hills out past baxter’s hollow took us to the top of pine hollow. pine hollow sna is a sandstone and baraboo quartzite gorge roughly 300 ft deep w/ flanking cliffs as high as 80 ft (according to the dnr’s page). a wide variety of life here, as the deep gorge affords a variety of habitats. hemlocks and white pines tower over the cliffs.

moss and ferns lie thick on the ground along the stream bed. there’s also a sedge meadow at the bottom of the hollow, but we spent our time up in the stony heights.

a late spring snow was falling and swirling up and down the gorge while icicles hung off the outcrops along with the moss and liverworts. trackless and gorgeous (pun very much intended). also, a first id of rattlesnake plantain.

spring snow in the pines

bare sand stone

and conglomerate