A double-up double down day

We celebrate two events close to my heart today:

• World Wetlands Day    Dakota: Mni Wiconi (water is life)       Ojibwe: Nibi gaa-bimaaji'iwemagak (water gives life)


• Groundhog Day    Unfortunately, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, six more weeks of Winter. Spring Equinox: March 20, 45 days from now, the same week as, but after, daylight savings time begins and St. Patrick's Day occurs.

Although the prospects for an early Spring have failed because Phil saw his shadow, that doesn't mean we might not enjoy an early Spring anyhow. Phil has been found to be accurate only between 35% and 40% of the time. If I'm assessing the equivalent of a double negative correctly, seeing his shadow and being less than 60% accurate actually means the odds are better than 50-50 Spring may be early this year.

Some of the happier hours of my life have been spent in a swamp or marsh, usually in pursuit of waterfowl, sometimes, back on the East Coast, wandering tidal marshes searching for clam flats. Much of my professional career focused on identifying and ameliorating, or, better still, preventing, water pollution. Without wetlands, and there are precious few of them left, our water supplies become like a family living from paycheck to paycheck, with no savings in case of emergencies. Those whose land Minnesotans inhabit today had a better, healthier perspective since they recognize that water is life. Minnesota could better manage its storm water by creating the urban equivalent of wetlands: rain gardens of various sorts. The state could also improve its carbon footprint by better protecting and restoring its peatlands, bogs and fens.

British soldier lichen appear as snow melts

Photo by J. Harrington

Whenever Spring's real thaw sets in, I'm looking forward to getting into the Sunrise River wetlands behind the house as the snows melt and mosses and fungi appear. Celebrating the change in dominance from white to green is something else those of us living in the North Country might want to pay more attention to honoring.

Providence

Natasha Trethewey - 1966-

What's left is footage: the hours before
       Camille, 1969—hurricane
              parties, palm trees leaning
in the wind,
       fronds blown back,

a woman's hair. Then after:
       the vacant lots,
       boats washed ashore, a swamp

where graves had been. I recall

how we huddled all night in our small house,
       moving between rooms,
              emptying pots filled with rain.

The next day, our house—
       on its cinderblocks—seemed to float

       in the flooded yard: no foundation

beneath us, nothing I could see
       tying us 	to the land.
       In the water, our reflection
                                trembled,
disappeared
when I bent to touch it.

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