a.
dried remnant of the year
seed capsules blow in the driving wind
yet your stream flows on clear
b.
graceful tumult at the boggy
edge. fringed gentian
crowns the cooling fen
karcher springs is a calcareous fen along a marl-bottomed stream sourced in springs flowing out of a wooded esker. what more can i say? thanks to the wisconsin dnr for tending this land.
a.
cyprus, birch root
cling to cliffside rocks
falling away to water
b.
headland winds
curl over bracken
cool tendrils
ellison bluff is a long terrace of the niagra escarpment. it’s ledge features white cyprus and the land stretching out behind it features a northern mesic forest made of ash, beech, maple, and oak. thanks for to door county for preserving this space.
a.
ferns waving flank
our footsteps, hornworts, bedrock
chainsaw echo on dolomite
b.
ankles ache below beech and hemlock
the sedge softness and alkaline marsh
tramping earth while we draw breath
c.
if beech trunks aflame
won’t tell us of heaven
what on earth will?
meridian state park is a forest, alkaline marsh, and sedge meadow on an isthmus between kangaroo lake and lake michigan in door county, wisconsin. the prominent outcropping of the niagra escarpment is something else, but so is the wood and the marsh. tremendous. thanks to door county for tending this land, and the workers who were there clearing trails as we walked them.
a.
berms and hills
tumbling moss
forest going to sleep
b.
sprays of birch
over upright apes
gold in the air
c.
you push thru pines your height
and thimble berry dense
young in the boreal forest
d.
birch leaves radiant, frogs
and mushroom gills spread
moss mats thick on the ground
bailey’s harbor boreal forest and wetlands is exactly what it sounds like! a fantastic and barebones trail thru the woods with extensive bryophytes and currently-blazing fall colors. a newer section goes along the lakeshore. thanks to the wisconsin dnr for caring for this site!
a.
on jumbled cement slabs in fox river
how little we know about our river friends—
i thought the current would be headed west
b.
fox river algal sways
rushes grow tall
blue heron sees us all
as i sat on one of the huge chunks of cement dumped near the bank of the fox river, i found myself trying to keep the electricity poles and other slabs of debris out of the shots of the opposite bank. that didn’t feel quite right, so i figured i had another “anthropocenum” moment on my hands. these shots are frank about what the fox looks like at this moment in its journey from halbach swamp down to the illinois.
virile russula caps
cluster the forest floor
thick smell of fungal bodies
Mushrooms and other fungal bodies are out in droves; reminds me of earlier days. Fungi are amazing. Full stop.
a.
gold leaves
grey skies
from fullness only fullness
b.
moraine rocks circle oak-trunk
a petrine crown by moss-road
the prairie a fragile stability
c.
glacier’s gravel underfoot
earth bristles with leaf and stem
a whole universe of grass
d.
rough blazing star
a shard on hillside
aspens grove the ridge
a.
stinkhorns, you’ve taken
all we’ve thrown your way
disturbance a way of life
b.
primrose blankets the broken ground
wort-wisdom making virtue
geese along the evening’s river
this new supplemental subgrouping of sna poems, the “supplementum anthropocenum” will showcase occasional moments of exceptional, natural rupture in the urban and other built environments.
in one of my seminars this term, my students and i are talking about how ‘nature’ isn’t ‘out there.’ (and the troubles that arise from the view that it is.) thought i should start taking it seriously in this series too.
here, a patch of stinkhorns continues to work down the wood chips in a median strip heading into downtown milwaukee (it fruits a few times a year), while a vigorous stand of evening primrose beautifies an abandoned lot on the city’s lower east side. how is this not ‘nature’?
a.
elms tower the swale
and feathered honey understory
stop listen see
.
b.
thick-cut rivers of bark
spleenworts humbling below
root yourself in the made
.
c.
zygomorphic spikes
of great blue lobelia
crowding our hasty retreat
.
sanders park state natural area is set within a park and ringed ’round by exculpating road(!). two different kinds of forest grow on swells and swale, an ancient terrace of lake michigan. an intermittent stream flows thru the whole; lots of wildflower and fern species.
thanks to racine county parks for keeping this patch of earth.
a.
waxy white sentinels
urge the leaf-litter
bowed and tremendous
b.
turkey tail splaying for the world to see
gill-bearers make life from death
the deep wet black of rot
c.
jack-in-the-pulpit lobed rubies
frogs in the rain-filled tracks
under-story going to sleep
Muskego Park Hardwoods is an old-growth southern dry-mesic forest in Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Some past grazing has brought in new species of wildflowers, and a healthy blend of different hardwoods stand strong. Thanks to Waukesha County for preserving this old-growth community!
Jacob Riyeff 