It's National Rivers Month!

Once again the temperature has reached 90℉ and, today, kept climbing. We have more of this in store for the next several days. That makes it entirely appropriate to note that June is National Rivers Month. We're settling for relaxing in our air conditioned abode. Late next week it's supposed to br a bit cooler, or we can try getting up and out early in the day, and we'll go take a look at our local wild and scenic river, the St, Croix. We recently learned that the Saint Croix River Association, of which we're members, has changed its name to the Wild Rivers Conservancy of the St. Croix and Namekagon. On the one hand, that name doesn't exactly flow off the tongue, nor are we convinced it's as informative as the organization's former name. On the other hand, the river hasn't changed and there are other, more significant issues about which we can, and do, get readily perturbed, for example, the proposed swine Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation [CAFO] in the river's watershed. It looks suspiciously like the state of Wisconsin is engaging in a race to the bottom with the state of Iowa to see who can have the least stringent environmental regulations, forgetting or ignoring that it is much, much easier to pollute a river than to clean it up.

will hog manure improve this river?

Photo by J. Harrington

Green River

by William Cullen Bryant

When breezes are soft and skies are fair,
I steal an hour from study and care,
And hie me away to the woodland scene,
Where wanders the stream with waters of green,
As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink
Had given their stain to the wave they drink;
And they, whose meadows it murmurs through,
Have named the stream from its own fair hue.

Yet pure its waters--its shallows are bright
With coloured pebbles and sparkles of light,
And clear the depths where its eddies play,
And dimples deepen and whirl away,
And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'ershoot
The swifter current that mines its root,
Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill,
The quivering glimmer of sun and rill
With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown,
Like the ray that streams from the diamond stone.
Oh, loveliest there the spring days come,
With blossoms, and birds, and wild bees' hum;
The flowers of summer are fairest there,
And freshest the breath of the summer air;
And sweetest the golden autumn day
In silence and sunshine glides away.

Yet fair as thou art, thou shunnest to glide,
Beautiful stream! by the village side;
But windest away from haunts of men,
To quiet valley and shaded glen;
And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill,
Around thee, are lonely, lovely, and still.
Lonely--save when, by thy rippling tides,
From thicket to thicket the angler glides;
Or the simpler comes with basket and book,
For herbs of power on thy banks to look;
Or haply, some idle dreamer, like me,
To wander, and muse, and gaze on thee.
Still--save the chirp of birds that feed
On the river cherry and seedy reed,
And thy own wild music gushing out
With mellow murmur and fairy shout,
From dawn to the blush of another day,
Like traveller singing along his way.

That fairy music I never hear,
Nor gaze on those waters so green and clear,
And mark them winding away from sight,
Darkened with shade or flashing with light,
While o'er them the vine to its thicket clings,
And the zephyr stoops to freshen his wings,
But I wish that fate had left me free
To wander these quiet haunts with thee,
Till the eating cares of earth should depart,
And the peace of the scene pass into my heart;
And I envy thy stream, as it glides along,
Through its beautiful banks in a trance of song.

Though forced to drudge for the dregs of men,
And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen,
And mingle among the jostling crowd,
Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud--
I often come to this quiet place,
To breathe the airs that ruffle thy face,
And gaze upon thee in silent dream,
For in thy lonely and lovely stream
An image of that calm life appears
That won my heart in my greener years. 

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