April is National Poetry Month!

 Tomorrow begins National Poetry Month for 2022. In the St. Croix Valley, much of the celebration will focus on the National Endowment for the Arts Big Read of US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s An American Sunrise. There’s also a traveling exhibit of the work of Minnesota’s Poet Laureate, Gwen Nell Westerman.

As if that’t not enough, check out:

30 Ways to Celebrate the 25th Annual National Poetry Month at Home or Online

1. Sign-up for Poem-a-Day, curated this month by award-winning poet Naomi Shihab Nye, and read a poem each morning.

2. Sign-up to receive a free National Poetry Month poster, featuring lines by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, or download the PDF and display it for the occasion.

3. Read 2021’s most-read poem by a contemporary poet, Amanda Gorman’s “In This Place (An American Lyric).”

4. Record yourself reading a poem, and share why you chose that work online using the hashtag #ShelterinPoems. Be sure to tag @poetsorg on Twitter and Instagram!

5. Subscribe to the Poem-a-Day podcast.

6. Check out an e-book of poetry from your local library.

7. Begin your virtual meetings or classes by reading a poem.

8. Talk to the teachers in your life about Teach This Poem and encourage students in grades 5 - 12 to participate in the Dear Poet project. 

9. Learn more about poets and virtual poetry events nationwide.

10. Read about your state poet laureate.

11. Browse Poems for Kids.

12. Buy a book of poetry from your local bookstore.

13. Make a poetry playlist.

14. Browse the glossary of terms and try your hand at writing a formal poem.

15. Create an online anthology of your favorite poems on Poets.org.

16. Organize a poetry reading, open mic, or poetry slam via a video conferencing service. 

17. Sign up for an online poetry class or workshop.

18. Donate books of poetry to little free libraries and mutual aid networks.

19. Research and volunteer with poetry organizations in your area.

20. Take a socially safe walk and write a poem outside.

21. Start a virtual poetry reading group or potluck, inviting friends to share poems.

22. Read and share poems about the environment in honor of Earth Day. 

23. Take on a socially safe guerrilla poetry project. 

24. Read essays about poetry like Edward Hirsch’s “How to Read a Poem,” Mary Ruefle’s “Poetry and the Moon,” Mark Doty’s “Tide of Voices: Why Poetry Matters Now,” and Muriel Rukeyser’s “The Life of Poetry.”

25. Watch a movie, lecture, or video featuring a poet.

26. Write an exquisite corpse or a renga with friends via email or text.

27. Make a poetry chapbook.

28. Share a poem for Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 29, 2021, on social media using the hashtag #PocketPoem.

29. Attend Poetry & the Creative Mind on April 29, 2021, a free, virtual reading of favorite poems in celebration of 25 years of National Poetry Month.

30. Make a gift to support the Academy of American Poets free programs and publications and keep celebrating poetry year-round!

 

so you want to be a writer?

Charles Bukowski - 1920-1994

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was. 

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A vision for Minnesota to share

The branches of trees are ice-coated, again. The ground is covered in freezing/melting slush. Temperatures have been hovering around 32℉. Has the township plowed our road for the last time this spring? Perhaps. Time, and temperatures, will tell.

March: mixed precipitation

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, yesterday we saw open waters at the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area Sunrise River pools north of County Road 36. There were in attendance quite a few Canada geese, a few swans, and a handful or two of ducks. We noticed a few mallards but that’s the only species we could ID on our quick drive past. A pair of sandhill cranes were stalking across one of the farm fields near the WMA. Other ponds and wetlands we drove past had waterfowl resting on the remaining ice. All in all, a typical early spring day in the North Country.

I’ve been doing some research on the economic impacts of recreational fishing, and fly fishing in particular, over the last few days. According to the American Sportfishing Association 2018 estimates, statewide anglers contributed $4.4 billion in economic output to the state and supported 28,000± jobs. In our own Congressional District 8, the comparable numbers were $518 million and 3,260 jobs. Minnesota, as you probably suspected, is ranked among the top states for recreational fishing participation. For comparison, Minnesota has about 6,500 mining and logging jobs statewide. (I’m not aware of any major pollution sites left by recreational anglers for taxpayers to clean up.)

I’ve not begun to review and assimilate the reports I’ve downloaded in the last day or so. That comes later. I do know that our current economy has most of US like the donkey on the treadmill trying to catch the carrot dangling in front of US. I’ve come to believe we deserve something better. Some years ago, Wendell Berry did a good job of capturing many of the essentials I’m referring to in this poem.

A Vision –

Wendell Berry

If we will have the wisdom to survive,

to stand like slow-growing trees

on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it,

if we will make our seasons welcome here,

asking not too much of earth or heaven,

then a long time after we are dead

the lives our lives prepare will live

there, their houses strongly placed

upon the valley sides, fields and gardens

rich in the windows. The river will run

clear, as we will never know it,

and over it, birdsong like a canopy.

On the levels of the hills will be

green meadows, stock bells in noon shade.

On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down

the old forest, an old forest will stand,

its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.

The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.

Families will be singing in the fields.

In their voices they will hear a music

risen out of the ground. They will take

nothing from the ground they will not return,

whatever the grief at parting. Memory,

native to this valley, will spread over it

like a grove, and memory will grow

into legend, legend into song, song

into sacrament. The abundance of this place,

the songs of its people and its birds,

will be health and wisdom and indwelling

light. This is no paradisal dream.

Its hardship is its possibility.

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Speaking for Minnesota’s waters: a Tower of Babel?

Yes, we mixed our metaphors. Nevertheless, today’s posting is short but, perhaps, not so sweet.

A quick search of the internet reveals that Minnesota has at least the following fishing / water conservation-related organizations.

• Trout Unlimited (5 chapters)


• Len Jewett Fly Fishers, Inc. (Fly Fishers International (FFI))


• Fly Fishing Women of Minnesota (Fly Fishers International (FFI))


• Minnesota Division of the Izaak Walton League of America (15 chapters)


• Minnesota Backcountry Hunters and Anglers


• Women Anglers of Minnesota

Only a few of these are listed among the long list of Environmental and Conservation Organizations in Minnesota.

We know of, and support, the Minnesota Environmental Partnership but, as far as we know, only a fraction of the fishing / environmental / conservations organizations are members. Could the fact that the environmental and outdoor recreation community finds it difficult to impossible to speak to the public policy makers with a unified voice help explain why:

• 88% of Minnesota’s waters are impaired for fish consumption
• 49% are impaired for aquatic life
• 57% fail to meet standards for water contact recreation.

A long time ago, the founders of Trout Unlimited observed that if we “take care of the fish, then the fishing will take care of itself.” It’s not possible to take care of the fish without taking care of the fish’s habitat, the water. We are continuing to do a poor job of that.

Not that very long ago, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency was governed by a citizens’ board. No more, thanks to the legislature.  Corporate voices, including especially corporate agriculture, are often heard and accommodated in the halls and corridors of the capitol. Money talks. Citizen voices are what’s needed to speak on behalf of the air, water and land we need restored to cleanliness if we are to thrive instead of simply survive. If all the outdoor recreation and conservation organizations in Minnesota created a 501(c)(4) organization, or something like it, we might be able to speak almost as loudly as corporate persons and might get heard more often in the capitol.

Dr. Seuss and the Lorax know:

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

The problem is, caring is not enough  these days. Big Ag and Big Mining carry big sticks of campaign cash and the promise of jobs. We need to see them and raise them. More on that later.

Floods

by Pablo Neruda

Design by Jianqui Jiang

 

The poor live on low ground waiting for the river
to rise one night and sweep them out to sea.
I’ve seen small cradles floating by, the wrecks
of house, chairs, and a great rage of ash—
pale water draining terror from the sky:
this is all yours, poor man, for your wife and crop,
dog and tools, for you to learn to beg.
No water climbs to the homes of gentlemen
whose snowy collars flutter on the line.
It feeds on this rolling mire, these ruins winding
their idle course to the sea with your dead,
among roughcut tables and the luckless trees
that bob and tumble turning up bare root.

Translated from the Spanish by John Felstiner 

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To “D” or not to “D,” that is the question

For some time I’ve avoided purging a number of old magazines, convinced, without much evidence to back up my conviction, that within two weeks of the purge I’d encounter an essential need for several issues recently disposed of. Today, in a different sector, I acquired some evidence supporting my theory. We live in Minnesota’s Congressional District 8. Until recently, it was a bastion of Democratic politicians.  I am not pleased with being “represented” in congress by a GOPer, but recently, Democrats have also displayed too many clay feet for my taste. Now, however, a recently announced candidate from Duluth, State representative Jennifer Schultz, has rekindled some of my enthusiasm. She’s announced she’s running for Congress against the incumbent.

MN Senate District 28

This is happening at the same time that the local Democratic-Farmer-Labor organization (MN SD 28), at the southern end of MNCD8, is looking for “Directors” to help get Democrats elected. I have mixed feelings about volunteering. On the one hand, I can’t stand GOPers. On the other, the major reason to support Democrats is because they’re not GOPers. I’ve been annoyed ever since Bill Clinton sold US a bill of goods on NAFTA and side agreements to protect the environment. I’d be a committed Democrat if the party were more liberal than neoliberal. I did make a contribution to the party last year, largely because the alternative is so unappealing.

I honestly don’t know what I’ll end up doing, although I’m leaning toward answering the questions on the sign up form honestly and seeing if that disqualifies me. I also need to think about the likelihood of politics interfering with my fishing time over the summer and autumn. Cross your fingers for me and the rest of CD8 please. Thank you!

Democracy Poem #1

By June Jordan

Tell them that I stood

in line

and I waited

and I waited

like everybody

else

But I never got

called

And I keep that scrap

of paper

in my pocket

just in case

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On becoming weathered

 Friday of the coming week is April Fool’s Day. There is no truth to the rumor that it was named after those who believe this time of year in the North Country is actually Spring. Our current windchill is 20℉. Tonight’s actual low temperature should be around 17 ℉. There is some good news, though. This is the week when overnight temperatures are supposed to bottom out at 32 ℉. The longer it takes for Spring to actually arrive, the more we’ll appreciate it when it does, right? The midweek snow forecast no longer includes local accumulations. So that’s hopeful. Please don’t remind us of these observations when we’re complaining about heat and humidity come July and August.

4/19/13 previews of coming attractions?

Photo by J. Harrington

Do you remember that there’s a Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, OK? It’s scheduled to open this May 10. It will join the Woody Guthrie Center as a major attraction. I had lost track of the Dylan Center’s development and stumbled across it this morning as I was looking online for information about some of Joy Harjo’s work. Harjo is the current Poet Laureate of the US, the first Artist-in-Residence for Tulsa's Bob Dylan Center, and lives in Tulsa. Her book, An American Sunrise, is the NEA Big Read next month. All-in-all, that’s enough good and interesting news to limit my complaining about our unseasonable weather. I’ve just finished rereading Sunrise and have found the online version of Harjo’s Poet Laureate project, Living Nations, Living Words. Before Harjo, Tracy K. Smith’s project was American Conversations: Celebrating Poems in Rural Communities. I believe I’ve found something to do instead of “doom scrolling” on social media, at least until the weather warms and I can spend time outside without concerns about spring frostbite.

An Old Story

By Tracy K. Smith

We were made to understand it would be

Terrible. Every small want, every niggling urge,

Every hate swollen to a kind of epic wind. 

 

Livid, the land, and ravaged, like a rageful 

Dream. The worst in us having taken over 

And broken the rest utterly down. 

 

                                                                 A long age 

Passed. When at last we knew how little 

Would survive us—how little we had mended 

 

Or built that was not now lost—something 

Large and old awoke. And then our singing 

Brought on a different manner of weather. 

 

Then animals long believed gone crept down 

From trees. We took new stock of one another. 

We wept to be reminded of such color. 

 

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Seasonal adjustments

Today’s temperatures won’t get above freezing. Tomorrow’s might barely make it. The ephemeral pond in the back yard is now ice covered. Wednesday and Thursday are forecast to bring 6 or 7 inches of snow. It’s Spring in the North Country. Accordingly, today we started Spring chores before the past season’s accumulated dog droppings are re-covered by half-a-foot of snow and slush. The down-lined, wind-proof coat I bought years ago to wear during November duck hunts came in handy fending off a windchill in the midteens.

11 seasons?

The Better Half has a pot of french onion soup cooking for tonight’s dinner. I’m struggling with an attitude adjustment. Instead of fussing and fuming about weather that is too much like February when the calendar has us almost in April, I’m reminding myself how much I get tired of summer’s heat and humidity and, come August and September, look forward to the kinds of non-Summer foods we’re enjoying today. Do you suppose chronic dissatisfaction is genetic with humans or is it a learned characteristic?

Recently I decided to get back into a hobby I first learned decades ago and then dropped for decades: fly tying. One of my first inclinations was to see if there are newer, better tools than the ones I have. Silly me! Of course there are. Fact is though, I have no idea whether I need, or even could use, those new tools. So, along with “Spring” cleaning this year we’re going to sort through what we have and try tying a couple of flies before we consider adding to the arsenal of geegaws and doodads found on most tying benches, including ours. In fact, looked at with a proper attitude adjustment, the return of chilly, snowy weather can help us focus on internal chores so the return of real Spring will find us ready and raring to go wet a line.

Cold Spring

By Lawrence Raab

The last few gray sheets of snow are gone,

winter’s scraps and leavings lowered

to a common level. A sudden jolt

of weather pushed us outside, and now

this larger world once again belongs to us.

I stand at the edge of it, beside the house,

listening to the stream we haven’t heard

since fall, and I imagine one day thinking

back to this hour and blaming myself

for my worries, my foolishness, today’s choices

having become the accomplished

facts of change, accepted

or forgotten. The woods are a mangle

of lines, yet delicate, yet precise,

when I take the time to look closely.

If I’m not happy it must be my own fault.

At the edge of the lawn my wife

bends down to uncover a flower, then another.

The first splurge of crocuses.

And for a moment the sweep and shudder

of the wind seems indistinguishable

from the steady furl of water

just beyond her.

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A return of Silent Spring?

Late yesterday, at dusk, we were visited by five whitetails. They were looking for something to eat under the pear tree and around our ephemeral pond. Meanwhile, at the pond, what I believe was an owl flew from the water’s edge into the nearest wood’s edge. Lighting at dusk isn’t always the best, especially when the sky is overcast, so much of what we were seeing was in shades of gray. Hence, some uncertainty.

our ephemeral pond behind the house

Photo by J. Harrington

Today’s backyard pond looks much like the one in the picture, but with much less surrounding snow cover. We’ve recently seen open water in several of the local streams. The pond north of our property is mostly ice free now. We’ll take a look at the Carlos Avery pools in the next few days and see how much ice cover remains there. Spring is slowly plodding its way into the North Country, under mostly cloudy skies with occasional downbursts of snow flurries.

The dogs seem pleased that most of the snow has melted. The dog walkers await dryer conditions before cleaning up a winter’s worth of dog droppings. It’s been a sad winter with the dogs since we lost one of our two as did the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law and Granddaughter, plus their other dog recently had three tumors removed. Prognosis looks hopeful though.

We’re in a funk about a continuing lack of appropriate action at the state and federal levels in response to a half century’s failure to meet long ago congressionally mandated water quality goals as evidenced by

• The Clean Water Act at 50: Promises Half Kept at the Half-Century Mark,  joined by


•  PROTECTING MINNESOTA’S WATER -- Threat Assessments & Policy Recommendations

Each notes disappointing failures, plus some success, at protecting and restoring one of our critical resource bases.

We’ve essentially broken the climate with increasingly dire consequences. Approximately 50% or more of our waters fail to meet an interim 1983 goal of “fishable--swimmable.” Corporate agriculture is looking for more subsidies to produce more mandated ethanol which represents a net increase in greenhouse gases. The list goes on and on, but for how long. Will our solar system face a Silent Spring that’s world-wide? How soon?

The Springtime

By Denise Levertov

The red eyes of rabbits   

aren't sad. No one passes

the sad golden village in a barge

any more. The sunset   

will leave it alone. If the   

curtains hang askew   

it is no one's fault.

Around and around and around

everywhere the same sound   

of wheels going, and things   

growing older, growing   

silent. If the dogs

bark to each other

all night, and their eyes   

flash red, that's

nobody's business. They have   

a great space of dark to   

bark across. The rabbits   

will bare their teeth at   

the spring moon.

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Writing a way home

 

have we the wisdom to know our place?

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning I registered for an online “nature writing” course offering a lesson by each of the following:

• Rebecca Giggs
  

  Her debut nonfiction book, Fathoms: The World in the Whale, came out in 2020 with Simon & Schuster (US), and Scribe (Aus/UK). In the US Fathoms was awarded the prestigious 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. The book also listed as a finalist in the Kirkus Prize and the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. In Australia, Fathoms won the 2020 Mark and Evette Moran Nib Prize for Literature, the Royal Zoological Society's Whitley Award for Popular Zoology, and the WA Premier's Prize for an Emerging Writer. It was also shortlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize — Australia's most renown award for writing by women and non-binary authors in any genre. Recently the book was distinguished by being 'Highly Commended' in the shortlist for the 2021 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation.

• Charles Foster
  

  Charles Foster is a writer, barrister and traveller. His books cover many fields. They include books on travel, evolutionary biology, natural history, anthropology, theology, archaeology, philosophy and law. Ultimately they are all presumptuous and unsuccessful attempts to answer the questions 'who or what are we?', and 'what on earth are we doing here?'

• Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder
  

  Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder is a writer based in northern New England. As a staff writer for Emergence Magazine, she explores the human relationship to place. Her work has been featured in Crannóg Magazine, Inhabiting the Anthropocene, and the EcoTheo Review. She is currently writing her first book.

• Lucy Jones
  

  I’m a journalist and author, based in England. I also teach writing workshops (the Guardian Nature Writing Masterclass) and talk about my research areas. My first book, Foxes Unearthed: A Story of Love & Loathing in Modern Britain, was published by Elliott & Thompson in 2016. It was long-listed for the Wainwright Prize and won the Society of Authors' Roger Deakin Award. My second book, Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need The Wild was published in March 2020 by Allen Lane (Penguin). The paperback was published in February 2021. Losing Eden was long-listed for the Wainwright Prize and received a Society of Authors’ K Blundell Trust Award. The Times and Telegraph named it a book of the year (2020) and the paperback became a Times' bestseller (2021). It is published in German, Spanish, Italian, the United States and soon in Portugal and Estonia. My third book, co-written with Kenneth Greenway, is called The Nature Seed and is published by Profile Books. I write features about science, health, wildlife and the environment for a variety of publications, including the BBC, Emergence, the Guardian and the Independent. Before going freelance in 2015, I worked at NME and The Daily Telegraph. I am represented by Jessica Woollard at David Higham Associates. For commissioning or broadcasting queries, you can write to me at lucyjones01@gmail.com. I am currently researching matrescence.

• Lia Purpura
  

  Lia Purpura’s new collection of essays, All the Fierce Tethers (Sarabande Books) has arrived! Her most recent collection of poems is It Shouldn’t Have Been Beautiful (Viking/Penguin.) She is the author of three previous collections of poems (King Baby, Stone Sky Lifting, The Brighter the Veil); three previous collections of essays (Rough Likeness, On Looking, Increase), and one collection of translations (Poems of Grzegorz Musial: Berliner Tagebuch & Taste of Ash).

• Jamie Figueroa
  

  Jamie Figueroa is the author of the critically acclaimed novel BROTHER, SISTER, MOTHER, EXPLORER, which “brims with spellbinding prose, magical elements, and wounded, full-hearted characters that nearly jump off the page” (Publishers Weekly). Figueroa is Boricua (Afro-Taíno) by way of Ohio and is a longtime resident of northern New Mexico. Her writing has appeared in American Short Fiction, Emergence Magazine, Elle, McSweeney’s, and Agni, among others. She received a Truman Capote Award and was a Bread Loaf Rona Jaffe Scholar. A VONA alum, she received her MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Given the array of writers, this should be interesting. I'm continuing to explore why New England remains "home" and Minnesota is a "home away from home." Maybe this will provide either insights or paths to follow, or both. After all, Robert Frost, known as a New England poet, was born in California. That’s really far from the real ocean, you know.

The Death of the Hired Man

By Robert Frost

 

... ‘Home,’ he mocked gently. 

                                       ‘Yes, what else but home? 

It all depends on what you mean by home. 

Of course he’s nothing to us, any more 

Than was the hound that came a stranger to us 

Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.’ 

‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, 

They have to take you in.’ 

                                      ‘I should have called it 

Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’ ...

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Do petitions to elected officials work?

 My email inbox is often filled with requests for donations to social and environmental organizations, probably because I’ve been a member of several and my email address was shared or stolen. In addition to outright requests, I often get asked to sign a petition or contact one or more of my elected representatives, often with a suggestion to add a personal note.

I’ve been watching more and more of my elected representatives send automated acknowledgements of receipt of an electronic communication and, occasionally, actually receive several days later, a substantive response along the lines of “I’ll keep your concerns in mind should I have to vote on this matter.” 

I Voted

Photo by J. Harrington

One of the reasons I raise these points, in addition to a growing level of personal cynicism, is it’s unclear to me how our democracy actually works or can work these days. I can’t stand 99.9% of Republicans. The Democratic Party seems to be more and more urban oriented and less and less competent and/or liberal over the years. A recent example of the consequences of such focus is Analysis: In Face of National Apathy, Local Groups Lead Rural Democratic Efforts. Closer to home there’s Can the DFL reconnect with rural Minnesotans? and 'Can't lose any more ground': Democrats try to slow red wave in rural Minnesota.

My concerns are compounded by an apparent decline in functional literacy and critical thinking skills among adults. If someone needs to have a ballot read to them, are they really qualified to cast an informed vote in an election? Declines in literacy and critical thinking skills could go far to explain the current state of our government. (Aided and abetted by greed and malice at the oligarch and corporate level.)

So, since we are supposedly living in a representative republic claiming to be a democracy, where, thanks to Citizens United we’re becoming a corporatocracy and/or oligarchy or autocracy, how do we turn around the fact that ordinary individuals have less and less influence on the systems governing US and too many of US are less and less qualified to exert what little influence we have? Should we sign a petition? To whom would we send it? The best Congress Dark Money can buy?

Democracy

By Dorianne Laux

When you’re cold—November, the streets icy and everyone you pass

homeless, Goodwill coats and Hefty bags torn up to make ponchos—

someone is always at the pay phone, hunched over the receiver

spewing winter’s germs, swollen lipped, face chapped, making the last

tired connection of the day. You keep walking to keep the cold

at bay, too cold to wait for the bus, too depressing the thought

of entering that blue light, the chilled eyes watching you decide

which seat to take: the man with one leg, his crutches bumping

the smudged window glass, the woman with her purse clutched

to her breasts like a dead child, the boy, pimpled, morose, his head

shorn, a swastika carved into the stubble, staring you down.

So you walk into the cold you know: the wind, indifferent blade,

familiar, the gold leaves heaped along the gutters. You have

a home, a house with gas heat, a toilet that flushes. You have

a credit card, cash. You could take a taxi if one would show up.

You can feel it now: why people become Republicans: Get that dog

off the street. Remove that spit and graffiti. Arrest those people huddled

on the steps of the church. If it weren’t for them you could believe in god,

in freedom, the bus would appear and open its doors, the driver dressed

in his tan uniform, pants legs creased, dapper hat: Hello Miss, watch

your step now. But you’re not a Republican. You’re only tired, hungry,

you want out of the cold. So you give up, walk back, step into line behind

the grubby vet who hides a bag of wine under his pea coat, holds out

his grimy 85 cents, takes each step slow as he pleases, releases his coins

into the box and waits as they chink down the chute, stakes out a seat

in the back and eases his body into the stained vinyl to dream

as the chips of shrapnel in his knee warm up and his good leg

flops into the aisle. And you’ll doze off, too, in a while, next to the girl

who can’t sit still, who listens to her Walkman and taps her boots

to a rhythm you can’t hear, but you can see it—when she bops

her head and her hands do a jive in the air—you can feel it

as the bus rolls on, stopping at each red light in a long wheeze,

jerking and idling, rumbling up and lurching off again.

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Water, water everywhere, nor any drop... #WorldWaterDay

Today is World Water Day. It’s also National Ag Day. Minnesota is noted for both its water and its agriculture. Unfortunately, the combination is not a healthy one.

Minnesota has approximately 67,400 farms. About 1,150 [1.7%] of them are water quality certified.

Minnesota has approximately 25,400,000 agricultural acres. About 800,000 [0.3%] of them are water quality certified.

This year’s World Water Day’s theme is groundwater. Unlike surface water, where about half of the state’s water bodies fail standards, it appears that Minnesota doesn’t have a good handle on its groundwater quantity or quality.

 Impaired Waters: draft 2022

The Clean Water Act at 50

Much of the current water quality failures in the state are attributable to agriculture, which is largely unregulated under the Clean Water Act. There’s a recently published report on the country’s failure to curb water pollution. Minnesota is among the leading failures.

One reason Minnesota may be facing such continuing failures to attain water quality standards may have something to do with what’s know as regulatory capture, compounded by limited to missing enforcement of existing water protection requirements. For example:

Enbridge crews punctured three aquifers during Line 3 oil pipeline construction, DNR says

The damage to groundwater resources was more extensive than previously disclosed. 

Few things would please us more than to be able to replace this year's gloomy and glum report with a much happier one next year on World Water Day. After 50 years of incomplete and inadequate responses, compounded by a worldwide general failure to appropriately respond to our climate crises, I’m not going to hold my breath that our environmental protection won’t still be under water.

Water

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

The water understands 

Civilization well; 

It wets my foot, but prettily, 

It chills my life, but wittily, 

It is not disconcerted, 

It is not broken-hearted: 

Well used, it decketh joy, 

Adorneth, doubleth joy: 

Ill used, it will destroy, 

In perfect time and measure 

With a face of golden pleasure 

Elegantly destroy.

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Lent Township’s Spring surprise!

In the midst of the first full day of spring in the northern hemisphere in 2022, local skies are overcast. We may, or may not, reach or exceed 60℉ today. [Update: we didn’t.] Snow is in the forecast for Wednesday. Pretty typical for North Country springtime.

Last night the air rang with the call of a sandhill crane as s/he flew over the house at dusk. More and more Canada geese are arriving in anticipation of open water. Muskrat mounds for nesting are being claimed. A few swans are also somewhere in the neighborhood. Snow cover is about 80%%-90% gone from open areas, less so in the shaded woods.

mushrooms: like voters, kept in the dark and covered in manure

Photo by J. Harrington

This evening we’re planning to attend a meeting of Township residents asking questions about the merger with the City of Stacy proposed by the township board at the annual meeting earlier this month. Since much of what  we’ve read leads us to believe that many township residents don’t know what such a merger may mean, or even that it’s been proposed, it should be interesting.

Much of the eastern portions of the township are separated from the City of Stacy by an expanse of Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area. How could it every be cost effective for the city to provide municipal services such as water and sewer to those residing on the eastern edge of the WMA? The township already has a joint fire department with  the city. The entire concept doesn’t seem to be well thought out. There’s a related series of questions regarding whether the county’s southern portion will actually be a growth area if gas reaches $6 or $7 a gallon before electric vehicles have largely replaced the current vehicle fleet.

Stay tuned for further developments, but, if you ever want to feel like you’re not living in a democracy, where your vote is not worth much, buy property in a township that’s considering the board knows best what’s good for the residents and will tell them when it’s ready.

What Things Want

Robert Bly - 1926-2021

You have to let things
Occupy their own space.
This room is small,
But the green settee

Likes to be here.
The big marsh reeds,
Crowding out the slough,
Find the world good.

You have to let things
Be as they are.
Who knows which of us
Deserves the world more?

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Growing, growing, gone!

Here’s an issue I suspect the green growth, zero growth, and downsizing folks should spend some time considering. Is the entire local governance structure in the USA and other countries established to promote development rather than protect agriculture and natural resources [public policy claims to the contrary]? Reading much of the relevant Minnesota legislation, one might conclude so. There rarely, if ever, seems to be any consideration of the question of how much is enough?

We’re posting on this theme because this year, at the Lent Township annual meeting, sort of out of the blue, the question of a merger with a city with which there’s an existing Joint Powers agreement, was raised. The concern expressed was loss of control of the township’s future 20 or 30 years in the future because that city and another declined to enter into a “No Annexation” agreement.

There’s been a fairly recent, and very contentious, annexation/merger involving another nearby township and city. Here’s a link to an Office of Administrative Hearings “Finding of Fact etc.” All 43 pages of it.

In the Matter of the Petition of Chisago
City for Annexation of Unincorporated
Property in Wyoming Township (A-6996)

On a directly related matter, here’s a link to a 2012 Legislative Auditor’s report on the Consolidation of Local Governments. One of the key findings was:

In lieu of consolidation, collaboration and cooperative service arrangements and incremental boundary adjustments are preferred methods to reconfigure local government services. (pp. 31-34, 62, 64) 

developments are often named after what they’ve replaced

Photo by J. Harrington

In light of the way the current township government has provided no real background information on the pros and cons of a merger compared to other alternatives, we have substantial concerns about how well residents will be served by the committee that was authorized and appointed at the annual meeting to “explore” the proposed merger.

Minnesota’s legislation leaves too much discretion to local officials and does not require, in our opinion, sufficiently rigorous analysis and local referenda to provide informed consent by current residents on any reconfiguration of local government.

 If we still lived on a planet where being hell bent for growth and development at all costs was the appropriate strategy, our perspective might be different. We are now facing climate weirding, a sixth extinction, multiple wars, significant food system issues and related problems. More of the same isn’t likely to solve these problems, is it?

It Is Enough to Enter

By Todd Boss

the templar 

halls of museums, for

example, or 

the chambers of churches, 

and admire 

no more than the beauty 

there, or 

remember the graveness

of stone, or 

whatever. You don’t 

have to do any

better. You don’t have to

understand 

the liturgy or know history 

to feel holy

in a gallery or presbytery. 

It is enough

to have come just so far. 

You need 

not be opened any more 

than does 

a door, standing ajar. 

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Spring, impending!

 Perhaps we’ve acted prematurely, overly optimistically, but the winter parkas and heaviest coats have been returned to the closet. It’s not that we think we won’t see snow or cold again until late this year, it’s that a week’s worth of consistent thawing and melting has made us willing to take a chance that spring may actually arrivve close to on time and last for more than a week or so this year.

Tomorrow, as all of us in the Northern Hemisphere know, is the Vernal Equinox. Locally, it happens at 10:33 am CDT. But we also know that each  season is a series of progressions that precede and follow specific moments in time. Can you see much difference between the two photos below? They’re of the pond a little north of our property. The one on the left (top) was taken last Thursday. The one on the right (bottom), this morning. Thursday was partly cloudy. Today was sunny. Other than that, is the difference in open water between the two noticeable?

March 17, 2022

Photo by J. Harrington

March 19, 2022

Photo by J. Harrington

There looks to me to be slightly more open water today, but not an overwhelming amount, unlike the ice and snow disappearing from our driveway. Sometimes natures transitions can be abrupt. More often, they’re gradual and slow. Humans list sunsets and sunrises as specific times, but light grows and fades during dawns and dusk. Remember, the universe, and the earth, function organically. It’s for our convenience that we impose mechanistic frameworks on days, weeks, months and seasons. The Celts observe two seasons, winter and summer.

The Celtic year was divided into two halves, the dark and the light. Samhain was the beginning of the dark half, with its counterpart, Beltane beginning the light half. Between these two 'doors' or portals fell Imbolc, on February 1, and Lughnasadh or Lammas, celebrated on August 1, quartering the Celtic year. These quarters were again divided by the solstices and equinoxes, which were known as the four Albans.

Minnesotans jokingly refer to our two annual seasons as winter and road construction. To reinforce our assessment of how basically arbitrary much of our time and date frameworks are, remember that this week past the US Senate approved, by unanimous consent, legislation that would make daylight savings time permanent. Those with their wits about them, particularly in the medical profession, believe the Senate got it bass-ackwards. Shocking, I know. At least we weren’t around to cope with  the confusion when the annual calendar was changed from Julian to Gregorian.

Even-Keeled and At-Eased

By Alberto Ríos

But the truth is, I am Thursday on a Monday. I

Am the walking calendar alive of mixed-up days and dim hours. I have

A week inside of me, a week or a year, time out of order. I have contracted

With the world to behave, to try, hard, to be Monday on a Monday. I

Look like I am happiness, don’t you think? On Monday, to you I have

The right laugh, and seem always to be even-keeled and at-eased.

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Au revoir Winter!

Day by day, the bare ground line creeps northward. No Yak Trak’s for the driveway today. The dog and I enjoyed today’s moon (full at 2:17 am) without slipping and sliding. According to our Minnesota Weatherguide Calendar, the Ojibwe name for the March full moon is Snow Crust moon, while the Lakota call it the moon of Snow Blindness. Those are generally consistent with names listed in the Native American Moons page of the Western Washington University web site, but the American Indian Alaskan Native Tourism Association’s web site lists a variety of names other than those in the Weatherguide. As noted in the introduction to the AIANTA listing, “The concept of months only occurred post-colonization and most of these tribal translations pre-date colonization and generally reflect the seasonality of lunar phases. Moon phases, in fact, were used as measurements of time.” 

name the last full moon of winter

Photo by J. Harrington

Whatever it’s called, today’s full moon is the last one of winter this year, since December’s full moon will occur on the 7th, while it’s still autumn [winter solstice will be December 21], and Monday, March 20th is the Vernal Equinox, the beginning of astronomical spring.

Sunsets have been phenomenal some of the past few evenings but I still haven’t learned how to reliably capture the astounding red/pink colors with a camera. Local whitetail deer have become more noticeable during the past week. One doe visited the pear tree a couple of days ago. The Better Half and I noticed five whitetails at the far edge of a farm field yesterday midafternoon as we drove some township gravel roads. Robins have also been sighted, but still no red-winged  blackbirds nor any tom turkeys in courtship display. So much to look forward to, including the first flowers on our forced quince stems!

Spring (Again) 

Michael Ryan

The birds were louder this morning,
raucous, oblivious, tweeting their teensy bird-brains out.
It scared me, until I remembered it’s Spring.
How do they know it? A stupid question.
Thank you, birdies. I had forgotten how promise feels.

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’Tis The Day of Himself

☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘

May love and laughter light your days,

and warm your heart and home.

May good and faithful friends be yours,

wherever you may roam.

May peace and plenty bless your world

with joy that long endures.

May all life's passing seasons

bring the best to you and yours!

In my younger days I marched in several St.Patrick’s Day parades, some in spitting snow, others in shining sun. Boston, and the south shore of Massachusetts, have always been “home.” Slowly, over many years, Minnesota has become a home away from home.

Today the roadside ditches, or about half of them, are running full of snowmelt. Many farm fields have large ephemeral ponds or wet spots, none of which this afternoon had attracted waterfowl. In the North Country, mid-March is a bit early to expect to see fresh green anywhere outside, but this year’s rapid thaw should have us looking at mostly bare ground over the weekend. That, along with love and laughter, will warm our heart and home.

Digging

By Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb   

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   

Bends low, comes up twenty years away   

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft   

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.   

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

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