Prairie Endings and Beginnings

“Each moment is a place you’ve never been.” — Mark Strand

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May slides toward its inevitable conclusion. New wildflowers open each day. Grasses concentrate on becoming fuller, lusher.

Golden Alexanders, looking other-worldly, finishes a spectacular bloom season. Bravo!

The first flowers of prairie smoke open.

The remains of last year’s grasses and dry seedheads still patch the unburned prairie in places.

Just as the native dwarf dandelions begin to bloom…

…the small white lady’s slipper orchids wither; ghosts of their once bright selves.

Damselflies emerge.

Fringed puccoon blooms, low in the grasses.

Nibbled by insects and small animals; ragged and worn by temperamental spring weather, the last prairie violets contemplate setting seed.

A female orchard oriole arrives. She’s looking for a mate; ready to raise a brood. She’ll weave a grassy pouch, sling it onto a forked branch, then fill it with half a dozen blue-gray, splotchy eggs.

She seems pretty calm about the hard work ahead.

Wild hyacinth flowers open from bottom to top. The seeds, like crazy punctuation marks, form close behind.

Beginnings and endings on the prairie. Every spring day brings more.

They’re worth watching for.

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Mark Strand (1934-2014), whose quote from “Black Maps”  (Collected Poems) opens this post, was a Poet Laureate of the United States (1990). He won many awards for his writing, including a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry collection, “Blizzard of One.”

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): golden Alexanders (Zizea aurea), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prairie smoke (Geum triflorum), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; sunset, Kent Fuller Air Station Prairie, Glenview, IL;  dwarf dandelion (Krigia virginica), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; small white lady’s slipper (Cypripedium candidum), The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; male mimic female eastern forktail (Ischnura verticalis ), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; fringed puccoon (Lithospermum incisum), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; prairie violet (Viola peditifida), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; female orchard oriole (Icterus spurius), Schulenberg Prairie Visitor Station, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; wild hyacinth (Camassia scilloides), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; sunset, Kent Fuller Air Station Prairie, Glenview, IL.