Poetry inspired by the archives of the University of Michigan Biological Station, written in gratitude for the accumulation of knowledge made possible by the work of environmental research scientists everywhere

 

To think that yesterday

I didn’t know that half a dozen sand spits

on the mitten’s tip of Michigan

are oriented with their spines aligned,

all trending to the west/northwest

suggesting that prevailing winds

came from the east-southeast 11,000 years ago—

wind that raced in summer

over Glacial Lake Algonquin,

gaining power in the stretch across

an estimated fetch of two hundred fifty miles

 

I passed the hours unaware

that all the while the likelihood of male cicadas singing

was increasing with the brightness of the sky;

not knowing that the females listening in through their tympana

would more likely move toward males

who nailed the high notes, with peak frequencies of 9 kHz

rather than 5—not really a surprise—

but if I’d known there was a word so apt

to describe that act of navigating toward a sound,

I might have said “Nice phonotaxis”

as I dropped my son at practice

and he moved toward the metal ‘ping’ of baseball bats

from fields beyond the trees

 

A day ago, I might have guessed that

double-crested cormorants had taken more than 6.3%

of yellow perch in ‘95 around the isles of Les Cheneaux,

if only on the basis of their ever-present,

wheeling show of iridescent wings

Yet at the same time, I’d have been among the last

to cast Emblemesoma auditrix as cannibals in utero—

having always been inclined to see

the better side of parasitic flies (all politics aside)

 

To think we walked the dog and, finding

milkweed blooming in the roadsides,

my daughter and I talked of monarchs when

instead we might have talked of microsatellite loci—

might have tried the patience of our collie while envisioning

short sequences of DNA repeated in tandem arrays, tracing

in our minds the fine genetic lines of kinship and identity

Had we known, we might have cancelled all our plans

and spent the afternoon exploring milkweed inner space;

found some shade and lingered there to savor the unseen,

to feel the weight of awe no less than that of gravity

 

What is insight, if not minutia well considered,

and what are we, if not expressions of the same

profound complexity that science would elucidate:

bound up with the sensory biases of crayfish,

the breeding site fidelity of piping plovers,

the respiratory exhalations of carbon dioxide

from downed wood on the forest floor?

 

Such a paradox, to think that yesterday I felt the wiser, knowing less,

the world a simpler place for having not perused the abstracts

of a hundred years of careful research laid like fieldstone fence

around the bend and out of sight; and really,

how much better would I sleep

could I not contemplate small mammal species

shifting long-established territories as the climate warms?

 

But ignorance is devastating bliss,

and I’d not miss the chance to celebrate a decade-long decline

of methylmercury in fish off Isle Royale, and better yet,

to know the reason why, for I see my children’s lives

between the axes of the graphs,

and despite my all-time favorite Wendell Berry line,

“Be joyful though you have considered all the facts,”

I’ll throw my lot with those who orient to evidence

like sand spits to the wind,

in hopes one day the facts themselves

are cause enough for joy.

 

Sources

Krist Jr., FJ, Schaetzl RJ.  2001.  Paleowind (11,000 BP) directions derived from lake spits in Northern Michigan. Geomorphology. 38:1-18.

Stolting, H, Moore TE, Lakes-Harlan R.  2004.  Acoustic communication in Okanagana rimosa (Say) (Homoptera: Cicadidae). Zoology. 107:243-257.

de Vries, T, Lakes-Harlan R.  2007.  Prenatal cannibalism in an insect. Naturwissenschaften. 94(6):477-482.

Diana, JS, Maruca SL, Low BS.  2006.  Do Increasing Cormorant Populations Threaten Sportfishes in the Great Lakes? A Case Study in Lake Huron Journal of Great Lakes Research. 32(2):306-320.

Kabat, SM, Dick CW, Hunter MD.  2010.  Isolation and characterization of microsatellite loci in the common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca (Apocynaceae). American Journal of Botany. 97(5):e37-e38

Ferrante, PA.  2008.  Chemical Orientation Strategies of the Crayfish, Orconectes virilis are Influenced by the Hydrodynamics of their Native Environment: An Example of Sensory Bias. Department of Biological Sciences. Master’s of Science:64pp.

LeDee, O, Arnold TW, Roche EA, Cuthbert FJ.  2010.  Use of breeding and nonbreeding encounters to estimate survival and breeding-site fidelity of the piping plover at the Great Lakes. The Condor. 112(4):637-643.

Gough, CM, Vogel CS, Kazanski C, Nagel L, Flower CE, Curtis PS.  2007.  Coarse woody debris and the carbon balance of a north temperate forest. Forest Ecology and Management. 244:60-67

Myers, P, Lundrigan BL, Hoffman SMG, Haraminac AP, Seto SH.  2009.  Climate-induced changes in the small mammal communities of the Northern Great Lakes Region. Global Change Biology. 15(6):1434-1454.

Drevnick, PE.  2007.  Methylmercury in fish: accumulation, toxicity, and temporal trends. Department of Zoology. Doctor of Philosophy:105pp.

Wendell Berry, from “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front” (1973)

In the Abstract © Laurie Allmann