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City Life, Nature Life

Bruneau – thoughts and poems, #128

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I recently visited Bruneau State Park in southern Idaho’s Snake River Valley. The park has a few hiking trails that pass by a small lake, a grove of Russian Olive trees, and meanders around and up a large sand dune. As my partner and I began our hike, we stop to read the informative sign at the beginning of the trail. At approximately 470 ft, the sand dune is the largest in North America. It stays relatively stationary moving a little to the East and a little to the West in the cycle of the seasonal winds. What the sign mentions that intrigues me is that the dune has been here for 15,000 years, forming during the glacial flood of Lake Bonneville.

I have been intrigued by time my whole life. The first book I remember reading about time and still own is titled “The Discoverers.”[1] It is broken into three books. The first one is about the processes man when through breaking up the day into small bits of time. It is my experience that these small bits of time create a sense of urgency or pressure to hurry and get things done.

Other things I’ve read or seen over the years look at time differently. These include the stretching of a 100 ft. tape measure in geology class or a PBS documentary of a car driving 100 miles. Both start at zero, earth’s beginning, and note events along the way.

Being a photographer, the most interesting to me was an essay I read in the 70’s by a forest park ranger. He postulated that if an alien race took a photograph of the earth every year since it’s beginning and they arrived on earth to share the movie, it would, based on the film rate of 24 frames per second, run a full year. In July, (or chapter 7, f you will), there is a hint of a Grand Canyon. In December, as with the tape measure and car as in the first examples, modern man only appears in the last few seconds, inch, or mile.

In the introduction of his book Search for the Meaning of Life: Essays and Reflections on the Mystical Experience, Willigis Jager, also uses a year long movie as a reference for time. “On the night of the 31st (on the last day, in other words) humans branch off from their ancestral apes. The Neanderthals live five minutes before midnight, and seventeen seconds before midnight, Jesus Christ is born, one-half second before twelve, the technological age commences.” [11]

I think of these perspectives as I climb this 15,000 year old sand dune holding my partners hand and wonder about the things I make big. I feel like a tiny grain of sand comprising a much bigger dune and wonder why I worry and become anxious. As I climb, I relax and experience a gratitude that I am not even sure for what.

seven poems: in pictures

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

[1] – Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers: A History of Man’s search to know his world and himself, (Vintage Books – Random House Inc., 1983)

[1I] – Willigis Jager, Search for the Meaning of Life: Essays and Reflections on the Mystical Experience, (Liguori Publications, 1995), Page 4

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Nature Life

Dry waterfall, #111

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This year the waterfall below Ivan Carper pass is a trickle. On our hike last year at this time, it was raging, filling the valley with its roar. The mountain meadows, although not as green as previous years, are still a contrast to the brown fields of the Palouse we drove through on our way here. Walking up to Minam Lake in the Wallowas, over Ivan-Carper pass to the lake basin, and out following the glacial valley where the East Lostine River meanders, there are also fewer flowers. The plants and the blooms seemed re-energized from the monsoon rain moisture that had come through a day ago. In the rain and the sunshine that followed we walked by Rainer Gentian, St. John’s Wort, Pacific Onion, Pearly Everlasting, Common Yarrow, Sulphuric Flower, Aspen Fleabane, Dwarf Fireweed, and Indian Paintbrush. I’ve never been one to learn the names of things. Camping at Mirror Lake I woke up in the middle of the night to pee and while out had to use my star gazing app to find out the names of stars and constellations. I learned I was seeing Jupiter and Saturn watching Draco flying between Ursa Major and Ursa Minor and the Milky Way spilling into a rising crescent moon. A sad feeling came over me, not having not paid much attention before to the names of things. I’d spent much of my life walking too quickly passing flowers not giving them the respect and appreciation they deserve for the efforts they give, whether it is a hot and dry or cool and moist.

flow in the meadow
purple and green waterfalls
a dusty trail’s edge

July monthly gallery:

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Previous monthly galleries

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Nature Life

Invisible Rain, #110

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1.

Melissa and I left on our annual summer backpacking trip to the Eagle Cap Wilderness. We left the Palouse in a shroud of smoke under an orange sun with an AQI (Air Quality Index) of 157, in the unhealthy range. We were going to an area under red flag and flood warnings/watches with heavy rain and thunder in the forecast. It made us feel uneasy. Our plan was to forge ahead and get a feel for what it might be like at the trail head before deciding to backpack in. We arrived to a little thunder, the last we would hear the remainder of the trip, at Two Pan trail head an hour out of Lostine, Oregon. After a conversation over lunch we decided to camp at the trail head to see what the evening might bring. I woke up a few times in the night to heavy rain that lasted 12 hours.

In the morning, the heavy rains subsided becoming waves of heavy-light rain (smaller drops, but the air felt full of water). We were in good spirits and decided to begin our hike. We began walking, taking a right at the fork to follow the West Lostine River up to Minam Lake. It was wet and warm. It felt like we were in a tropical forest instead of a forest in the Pacific Northwest. As we walked my quick dry hiking shirt and shorts were soaked with rain, the humid air, and sweat. I wondered if this is what is is like to swim the mountains and walk the waters.

On the trail we came across a couple and later an individual; each saying how light the traffic and how heavy the rain was last night. They looked soaked as I imagined we did. We continued our walk in the rain. I wondered about the smoke we were driving in yesterday. Were the particles soaking me like the rain? An invisible rain that I couldn’t feel soaking my clothes, skin, and breath? I then wondered about the soaking of other invisible particles such as micro-plastics and green house gasses. I ask myself, how do I walk in this invisible rain?

2.

buzzz -a mosquito
at the end of my swiped hand
a lake trout jumping

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City Life, Nature Life

In the Arboretum II – Blooms, #83

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1.

I enter the arboretum wondering what blooms will be out today.  There are a few clouds on this cool day, yet our warmest of spring .

I approach a family, the parents are in no rush to exit. The children are running and laughing under the bare branches. They stomp then wonder at their  footprints in the remnants of an early morning snow in the dappled light.

Pools of grief and joy
well in afternoon green buds
early spring snowmelt

2.

I pass two people.  Their voices mix with the chatting of squirrels and the chirping of birds.  One has a pair of binoculars hanging from their neck. We share a “Hello.”

After they pass by, I hear a sound.  Looking over, I see an empty tree branch waving.

Floating Lenten Rose
blooming in the garden bed
a passing spring cloud

3.

Close to the exit, I approach one of the pair I had passed earlier.

I blurt out, “Did you lose someone?”  They laugh and look back the way they came saying , “No, they went that way.”

Day after winter
February Daphne blooms
Its fragrance lingers

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