INTRODUCTION

When I first read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring it was in a “Muckraking America” honors history course in college.  Our professor, Dr. Morton, was a woman in her last semester before retirement and she was passionate about the issues we discussed in a way that I couldn’t understand, but that I loved.  I hadn’t seen the changes in the world as she had, but I darn well was learning about the effects—good and bad.  I vividly remember a video clip she showed of people sitting idly at a picnic table while being showered with a “beneficial” chemical.  As I read Rodney Jones’ “Assault on the Fields” in the poetry anthology, Wild Reckoning, that was provoked by Carson’s book, his description of the chemical “snow” through which his father rode his tractor immediately brought me back to the horseshoe of tables where we sat listening to Dr. Morton’s fierce indignation.  It wasn’t an opinionated old woman or even an articulate 1960’s author who built the fire burning in my heart for the destruction of our environment.  They may have provided some fuel, but the logs had already been carefully arranged. 

This summer I chose to participate in the EarthWalk Vermont Progressive Institute for Educators.  EarthWalk is a nature-nurturing program that thoughtfully mentors children to develop their connection and appreciation for the land.  Our experience commenced with the end of the EarthWalk week-long camp where we sang songs, heard stories and welcomed the continuation of the passions the campers had developed.  Fire was brought to our circle by a teen using a hand bowdrill.  Her practice in the art of forming a coal was evident, but the fruit of her labor would have quickly died had the flaming tinder bundle not had an intentionally constructed fire structure in which to grow.  When the campers said their fond farewells, Angella—the Program Director—shared with our remaining group of nine educators a poem written by an EarthWalk Parent:

FIRE 

by Judy Brown

What makes a fire burn

is the space between the logs,

a breathing space.

Too much of a good thing,

too many logs

packed too tight:

can douse the flames

almost as surely

as a pail of water would.

So building fires

requires attention

to the spaces in between,

as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build open spaces

in the same way

we have learned

to pile on the logs,

then we can come to see how

it is fuel, and the absence of fuel

together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log

Lightly from time to time.

A fire

grows

simply because the space is there,

with openings

in which the flame that knows just how it wants to burn

can find its way.

Dr. Morton and Rachel Carson added logs to an already well-ventilated fire structure.  As a child I spent a week each year hiking in the mountains of Acadia National Park in Maine. As referenced in my poem---, I spent hours after school trudging through ponds in rubber boots.  I grew up in nature.  Each frog I caught and examined added a “mouse-tail stick” to my fire structure.  Every time I climbed another bald Maine mountain I laid a “chickadee stick” to the pile.  The nights I laid in the cool grass learning the constellations gathered “deer leg branches” to add once the fire grew.  My experiences in nature have prepared me to take its well being up as a personal cause.  Reading “Silent Spring” without having had these experiences or hearing Dr. Morton’s ridicule of the way we treat our natural habitat without the personal experiences in nature to draw upon may very well have been like trying to catch a stack of chopped wood on fire; the flame may have flickered briefly, but with no rhyme or reason to the structure—no open spaces—the fire would not last.

We need the fire to last—to burn strong.  Without a nurtured cause in our hearts, our lifestyle and thoughtless acts may destroy our earth and in that ourselves. 

I had thought when I decided to take this time on the land to read and write poetry that it would be a simple exercise in learning more about a way to arrange words.  What I found, however, was that in selecting eco-poetry—as opposed simply to nature poetry—I discovered the brilliant importance of this art form in engaging individuals with their environments—a way to build up the “mouse-tails” needed to start a roaring fire.  The exploration of this discovery is the subject of the essay provided here along with my journal entries.