Tumble grass time

Temperatures cool down for a few days, then climb back to summer-like levels. Winds, which are more southerly much of the summer, begin to shift to the winter’s northwest and back. The start of leaf fall occurs. Shifting and strengthening winds loosen the tan, spiky seed heads of Eragrostis spectabilis (Purple Lovegrass) also know as tumble grass.

lovegrass in the wind

Photo by J. Harrington

Here at the eastern edge of the Anoka Sand Plain is prime habitat for tumble grass. The field behind our house is full of it, as are the fields in front of both neighbors to our east. Ditches and sheltered corners have been filling with tumble grass heads the past few days.

One of my favorite characteristics of lovegrass is the way it captures autumn dew and shines magically as the sun rises on September mornings. The fields surrounding us look as if they’re full of clouds that were resting for the night on beds of grass before rising with the warming air of the day.

Thanks to an abundance of pocket gophers and drought this summer, our fields are much the worse for wear. Either this fall or next spring, we’ll do more reseeding with some drought tolerant ground cover that does well in sand. If the lovegrass reseeds itself, so much the better. One nursery is offering seeds at $450/lb (no, I didn’t miss the decimal point), which is too rich for my taste.

The Grass

By Jeffrey Yang

Bouteloua black

grama grass red

chino side-

oats blue grama grass

hairy buffalo-

grass toboso three-awn

land’s dawn 旦 sun

over sand, tumble

wind-

mill witch- cup- saltgrass

plains love- indiangrass, prairie

cordgrass, pink pappusgrass, sprangle-

top green knotroot

bristle, bluestem, tangle-

head, sacaton

panicles

open, golden drop-

seed blooms desert winter-

grass, awns twist, un-

twist, such

syllables flicker

out of grass

: Nanissáanah

thirst, ghost dance

native

spirits, active

roots, footstalks

to soil as to site, stems

bend, range-

lands wave, seiche

fields sway, clouds

pass over-

grazed grass

staked, fenced

dries, weakens, dies,

fallen

crowns, the grasslands

what

comes to pass, ranch-

hand lands, live-

stock livelihood

wildlife gone, displaced, migrations

impeded, scales im-

balanced

the years

spread, each itself

hitched to everything else

in the universe

nodes

hollowed, drought-

land years, drops

on the hardpan

nature

is endless

regeneration

trichloris, muhly, switch-

grass, wind misses

沙 沙 shasha through the pass-

es, whispering seeds

will pass, will pass

within leaves

listening

grasses, not only

the revelation

but the nature behind

to sustain it, over-

land grasses seeds

spread and grow, rhizome,

stolon to sod, curly

mesquite cotton-

top, draft

to draft 草

ten thousand

grasses, 草 dancing

culms 草 of grass

florescence, sheaths

and blades whorl

flower to

flower, wild

grass, knowing

wind strips, slips

of time, the leaves

words weave, un-

weave the

grass

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