A Season on the Brink

“No winter lasts forever, no spring skips its turn.” — Hal Borland

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February’s weather roller coaster continues its wild ride into the end of the month. The weather cools. Warms. Cools again.  Mornings are unexpectedly shrouded by fog.

Milkweed bugs emerge early. Too early? Confused, they look for their signature plant and find only the last bleached-out stands of grasses and crumbling wildflowers.

The brittle grasses, defeated by winter, wait.

There’s a lick of flame. The tallgrass is intentionally torched…

The flames consume the last elegant silver and gold seed heads; currency of the rich prairie landscape.

In a flash, the muscled stems and starred coneflower seed heads…

…and diverse species of grasses…

…of the past season disappear.

The landscape changes to one of smoke and ash.

A day or two passes. The prairie, sleek in the aftermath of fire, is a just-cleaned blackboard.

What new memories will we chalk  upon it?

Slowly, the signs of spring appear.  On the edge of the burned prairie, St. John’s wort leaves tentatively unfurl.

Overhead, sandhill cranes scrawl their graceful cursive flight patterns as they head north.

There’s a fresh smell in the air. A difference in the slant of the sun. It’s as if a window is opening to something new.

We feel it. Spring.  The heat of the prescribed fire. The emerging insects. The green of new leaves. The arrival of the sandhills.

On the last day of February, we wait for it.

A season on the brink.

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Hal Borland (1900-1978) was an American nature writer and journalist. Born in Nebraska, he went on to school in Colorado, then to New York city as a writer for The New York Times. In 1968, he won the John Burroughs medal for distinguished nature writing for Hill Country Harvest.

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All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom):  Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium maculatum), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; milkweed bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; tallgrass in February, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  prairie burn, Glen Ellyn, IL; wild quinine (Parthenium integrifolium), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; Canada wild rye (Elmyus canadensis), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; prairie burn, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL: after the burn, Burlington Prairie Preserve, Kane County Forest Preserve and Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Burlington, IL; after the burn, Burlington Prairie Preserve, Kane County Forest Preserve and Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Burlington, IL; Kalm’s St. John’s wort (Hypericum kalmianum), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis) over author’s backyard prairie patch, Glen Ellyn, IL: railroad at Burlington Prairie Preserve, Kane County Forest Preserve and Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Burlington, IL.

The Grassy Sea

“This dewdrop world  is a dewdrop world. And yet. And yet.” –Kobayashi Issa

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September draws to a close. The prairie dreams;  wakens later each morning.

You gaze at the grass, all waves, and wind, and water. A grassy sea.

Foam is kicked up by the churning of the grasses.

The clouds become the prows of ships, tossing on the tumultuous air…

And you realize fences, no matter how strong, can never contain the tallgrass, washing up against the wires.

Fungi cling like barnacles to dropped limbs on the edges of the grasses…

You reflect on how, after almost being obliterated, the tallgrass prairie has hung on to life; survival by  a thread.

It was a close call. Even today, prairie clings to old, unsprayed railroad right-of-ways in the center of industrial areas and landscaped lawns.

Little patches of prairie, scrabbling for life, show up in unlikely places.

Although the prairie’s former grandeur is only dimly remembered…

…and in many places, the tallgrass prairie seems utterly obliterated from memory, gone with the wind…

…the  prairie has put down roots again. You can see it coming into focus in vibrant, growing restorations, with dazzling autumn wildflowers…

…and diverse tiny creatures.

 

There is hope, glimpsed just over the horizon…

The dawn of a future filled with promise for a grassy sea.

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Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), whose haiku opens this essay, was a Japanese poet regarded as one of the top four haiku masters of all time. He wrote this particular haiku after suffering tremendous personal loss.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): mist rising over prairie planting, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; autumn at Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), Conrad Savanna, The Nature Conservancy and Indiana DNR, Newton County, IN; Nachusa Grasslands in September, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; purple love grass (Eragrostis spectabilis) and sweet everlasting (Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium), Kankakee Sands, The Nature Conservancy, Newton County, IN; unknown fungi, Brown County State Park, Nashville, IN; marbled orb weaver in the grasses (Araneus marmoreus), Brown County State Park, Nashville, IN; big bluestem  (Andropogon gerardii) and other prairie plants along a railroad right-of-way, Kirkland, IN; prairie plants along an overpass, Bloomington, IN; thistles and grasses, Kankakee Sands, The Nature Conservancy, Newton County, IN; wind farm, Benton County, IN; great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica), Kankakee Sands, The Nature Conservancy, Newton County, IN;  Eastern-tailed blue (Cupido comyntas), Brown County State Park, Nashville,  Indiana; Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL.