avon bottoms is a flat floodplain of the sugar river with a maple-oak forest. many southern-ranging species of plants find the northern edge of their range in the woods. swenson wet prairie s.n.a. is now part of avon bottoms as well.

a.

the floodplain is laced

with marbled ice

beneath an early moon

b.

golden hue of big stem

below the swooping ash—

families play in the bottom

c.

the sugar river ambles on

past fragrant bottomland

extremities grow cold

d.

the dead-grass tapestry

of winter wetlands

is widely undervalued

from paleozoic seabed to chisel and hammer

hewn sandstone grains, frosted, become

a wayside. wild carrot patrons now

this little building on the highway between janesville and edgerton in wisconsin is said to be an old tavern. an ancestor who lived west of here is rumored to have had a few too many in the old establishment one night before going off down hurd road and throwing ties on a track to derail train no. 143 from madison to chicago. the latter part is not rumor but documented. the record says no one was hurt, but he did some time.

the sandstone structure is beyond dilapidation now.

fields of extinct prairie

on the way to scharines—

snout of the green bay lobe

the johnstown terminal moraine is the edge where the green bay lobe of the last glaciation left the final heap of rock and sediment of glacial till. it’s out near johnstown in rock county (my home county), and continues up to northern wisconsin. yet another example of how my and my family’s lives have been shaped by glaciation, the road we took to go see it is the road my wife used to drive up as a young girl to get her dad’s paychecks! here’re views of the approach and the moraine itself (and work) from inside the van.