Lifelong Learning

We're returning from a short hiatus to share some stories from the field and laugh a little over what we’ve learned from our misadventures. Mud pits, questionable plants, and poetry are involved.

Sources & Links:

See what a rufous-capped warbler looks like:
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/rufous-capped-warbler

Decide for yourself if you’d put a jack-in-the-pulpit in your mouth (don’t do it):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arisaema_triphyllum

And learn more about the incomparable Neil Rettig:
http://www.neilrettigproductions.com/

~
Leonard by Jonah Gula
My world is large.
I cross continents and waters,
By land and by sky.
I see mountains and forests,
The rivers, the seas.
Yet I know not these lands.
For they are deep,
Deeper than a thousand years can reveal.

And there is Leonard,
Just a blip on a map.
His twitches and brooks,
The ponds, the stands.
His corners are mapped
In my mind, so I think.
But he is deep,
Deeper than a thousand years can reveal.

Then I zoom.
Zoom to the flow
Where beavers keep work.
The engineer and his home,
His pond, his dam.
But it is deep,
Deeper than a thousand years can reveal.

Who inhabits the flow?
More than I see
Make their home up the dam.
There are otters and turtles,
The dragons, the trout.
And that is deep,
Deep as I’ll go in a thousand years.

On the shores of the pond
Are the softwoods inmixed.
Riches and wonders
I supposedly see.
The moose and the bear,
No midges, no ants.
I feel the depth,
And for a thousand years search.

Wait! So easy to miss
Are Leonard’s ditches and pools.
My wheel will destroy
What I’m too blind to see.
Here live leopards and snappers,
The pupa, the swallowtails.
There seems no depth,
So a thousand years, wasted.

Leonard’s a friend,
I believe when I leave.
But a friend with great secrets,
Is hardly a friend.
For what of his ponds and shores,
The ditches, the pools
Can I ever know in a thousand years?
~

Visit the show’s website at conservationchronicles.podbean.com to learn more
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Our theme song is Epic Cinematic by Scott Holmes / https://scottholmesmusic.com