A Very Prairie New Year

“The ignorant man marvels at the exceptional; the wise man marvels at the common; the greatest wonder of all is the regularity of nature.” — G. D. Boardman

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2019.

The new year stretches ahead; an unmarked trail. Full of possibilities.

2018 is now water under the proverbial bridge.

Some of us don’t want to let go of the year; full of sweet memories and adventures.

For others, 2019 can’t happen fast enough.

2018 may have left us a little worse for wear.

The symbolism of the “clean slate” is attractive, either way.

Out with the old. In with the new.

Sure, the year ahead will hold new challenges. Some of them may leave us bent, broken, even temporarily defeated.

And yet.

The prairie reminds us that there is a rhythm to life. The tallgrass has its own predictability.

There will be a few curveballs. Predictability is always punctuated on the prairie by surprises.

The unexpected waits to emerge.

That’s part of the frisson, even tension of greeting a new year.

And part of the joy.

Where will the next days and months take us?

And will we be up to the challenges?

Let’s plunge in and find out.

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George Dana Boardman Pepper (1833-1913) was a pastor and president of Colby College in Maine.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom) snowy trail through little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Willoway Brook in the Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  tracks through the Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; dogbane or Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum), Fermilab Natural Areas, Batavia, IL; bug eaten leaf, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; unknown tracks, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; stack of 2018 season’s sweet clover (Melilotus alba and officinalis) along the two-track, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum), Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; praying mantis (Mantis religiosa or possibly the Chinese mantis, Tenodera sinesis) egg case on fragrant sumac (Rhus aromatica), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  Illinois bundleflower (Desmanthus illinoensis), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; interpretive trail, Fermilab Natural Areas, Batavia, IL; Willoway Brook tributary through the Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

Thank you to Candy Peterson for bringing the opening quote to my attention! Grateful.

 

A Merry Prairie Christmas

“In late December I feel an almost painful hunger for light…It’s tempting to think of winter as the negation of life, but life has too many sequences, too many rhythms, to be altogether quieted by snow and cold.” — Verlyn Klinkenborg

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Christmas morning dawns, cold and overcast. The scent of snow is in the air.

On the prairie this week, it’s been mostly sunny. Quiet.

Willoway Brook provides the December soundtrack: water moving fast over rocks. Ice lingers in the shoreline’s shadows.

Wildflower seedheads silhouette themselves along the edges of the stream.

Prairie dock leaves, aged and brittle, offer their own late season beauty. Lovelier now, perhaps, than in their first surge of spring green. Spent. No towering yellow blooms to distract us. The marks of age—wrinkles and splotches—will soon end in a flurry of flames.

Along the edge of the prairie, fragrant sumac fruit could pass for furry holly berries—with a bit of imagination.

Blown out stars of sudsy asters froth along the gravel two-track.

Crumpled leaves of pale Indian plantain create stained glass windows when backlit by the winter sun. The woods are often called “cathedrals'” by writers. A bit of a cliché.  But it’s not much of a stretch to call the prairies the same. The tallgrass offers its own benedictions to those who hike it. Especially in solitude.

Flattened by an early November blizzard, the prairie reminds me of the ocean, washing in grassy waves against the coast of the savanna. I think of Willa Cather, who wrote in “My Antonia”: “As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea…and there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow to be running.”

The end of the year is just a breath away.

Who knows what wonders we’ll see on the prairie in the new year? I can’t wait to discover them. How about you?

Happy holidays and Merry Christmas to all!

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The opening quote is from Verlyn Klinkenborg’s The Rural Life. Klinkenborg (1952-) was raised on an Iowa farm. He teaches creative writing at Yale University. Listen to Klinkenborg speak about his writing here.

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All photos (copyright Cindy Crosby) in the blog post today are from the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL, except where noted (top to bottom): bee balm (Monarda fistulosa); the Schulenberg Prairie in late December; Willoway Brook reflections; gray-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) seedheads; prairie dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum); fragrant sumac (Rhus aromatica); unknown aster; pale Indian plantain leaves (Arnoglossum atriplicifolium); prairie grasses and savanna; sunset at College of DuPage’s East Prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL.