Thursday, April 13, 2023

Make STEM STEAM

There are still a few widely scattered patches of snow remaining after a couple of days in the 80s.We are now into RED FLAG brushfire season plus flood warnings along some rivers. The rain and snow showers expected this weekend will help the former but not the latter. Meanwhile, after a record-setting winter’s snowfall, we’ve set several new daily high temperature records for the Twin Cities area this week. This is what happens when you don’t have an ocean nearby to temper wild weather swings.

haven’t yet seen a local red-winged blackbird
haven’t yet seen a local red-winged blackbird
Photo by J. Harrington

I’m pondering why there seems to have been limited effort so far exploring the concept of bioregionalism in the upper Midwest. At least there’s little I can find on line about bioregionalism for Minnesota, Wisconsin, the St. Croix river and watershed, etc. I’m becoming more and more interested in learning about any potential relationship(s) between bioregional and traditional ecological knowledge. I’m also back to exploring questions around the concept of cultural appropriation. All of the preceding is because I am delighted by A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia and look forward to reading Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry. 

All of the preceding is due to recent discoveries of online literary field guide type resources and a desire to find a useful model for organizing them. I’m convinced we must include the Arts as part of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math or we are likely to find ourselves in a position similar to the person whose only tool was a hammer. Consequently, every problem or opportunity looked like a nail. Plus, we’ve taken reductionist thinking beyond reasonable limits and need to put time and effort and resources into synthesizing new and improved world views. Perhaps it’s literally time to go “back to the future.”


national poetry month

Digging


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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