around five acres of forested bluff and shoreline on lake michigan just north of the city of milwaukee. a steep fall down a ravine off lake drive goes to a trail that skirts the line where lake michigan eats away at the coastal bluff. good beach time with my youngest today.
a.
down to the lakefront
past new squill
mussel shells abound
b.
agate and granite
schist and gneiss
my second son’s smile
a touching one from bernard durward’s 1882 collection poems, on the matter of his very young daughter who died in the 1850s:
hi folks. ballast is a new literary journal edited by two poets doing good work. they’ve kindly accepted two of my poems for issue #2—one a lune made in the california redwoods (hence the redwood sorrel pictures), the other a long section of my long natural-family-personal history poem (probably the work i’m proudest of in the last few years).
they also gave me the pleasure of recording audio for the poems. you can see and read them here, and do give a look around the rest of the issue while you’re there!
goose lake drumlins sna is a couple parcels of land with six drumlins (oval-shaped hills formed by glaciers as till is shaped and scraped past by ice and water flow), two lakes, and wetland complex of marsh and bog in dane cty. the open water, wetland, and forest complexes (on the drumlins) make for rich mammal, fish, bird, and plant communities.
we were running low on time when we got here, and weren’t equipped to trek across large swaths of marsh, so we just enjoyed some time down by the cattails and viewed the drumlins from the dungeon (low area b/t drumlins) as we watched various birds of prey (including an eagle) fly about and dive. not a bad end to the day, tho i’d like to get back for a drumlin or two and to visit the bog south of goose lake.
first id of nannyberry (the bud below) thanks to the inaturalist community.
a.
wetland birds-of-prey
slopes and beaks
sun-drenched tamaracks
b.
black-cap chittering
cherry bark
in sunlit dungeon
c.
barn-cat gingerly
in marsh-grass
moraine-whales prowling
deansville fen is a calcareous fen in a larger marsh wetland complex in dane cty, wisconsin. sedge meadow and hummocky wet prairie surround. crossing a tributary stream was quick and painless on a massive old tree that had fallen across but the maunesha river itself was trickier—involving gathering three vines growing out of the riverbank with the foot in order to create a suspended step above the water while lunging out to other small trees growing in the water while balanced on a protruding log caught in an accidental dam in the river—one foot went way in on the way back out!
but a fine morning in the fen, quiet, some birds singing, not much new growth yet. turkey and rabbit tracks in the snow.
a.
sunbleached snag in march
stretches out
above new fen-growth
b.
fen-grove
branch-creak
wind
c.
cottonwood leaves
with algae
in the wetland’s mouth
d.
a very awkward
wading bird
stalks the morning edge
a philosophical poem on the stance toward the beautiful from bernard durward’s 1882 poems:
today’s poem from bernard durward’s 1882 volume, poems, on topics most keenly appealing to me: time, death, and love.
“a tear” from 19th-century milwaukee poet bernard durward. read from his 1882 collection, poems.
today’s poem is set presumably at durward’s glen in caledonia township, columbia cty, wisconsin. from his 1882 self-printed book, poems: vol 1.
a macabre ending, and i assume “cicala” is supposed to be “cicada.” summer in the glen.
kratzsch preserve is a 72-acre wood and wetland lot of former farmland rehabilitated by the ozaukee and washington county land trust. they’re doing good work here people. prairie, marsh, hardwood forest, frontage on the milwaukee river, glacial topography; little bit of everything.
this was a great hike, up and down, good steady wind on the prairie but some shelter in the woods and down by the river. snow drifts gave us a workout. sat with the robins and redwing blackbirds by the river for a spell. four lunes and views for you.
a.
snowmarsh and cattails
crows cawing—
trunk shadow and gone
b.
cork margin’s lake-edge
on dead birch
perilous gambit
c.
prairie grass hoophouse
seedhead sprays
accent the esker
d.
confluence upstream
milwaukee
runs on in light snow
Jacob Riyeff 