Gene Stratton-Porter wrote about the Limberlost Swamp in her non-fiction book Music of the Wild. In the third section, she writes about the Music of the Marsh. She describes scenes that we see today at the Limberlost Swamp Nature Preserve, Loblolly Marsh Nature Preserve, Rainbow Bottom and Music of the Wild, the preserve named for this book. These preserves were all once part of the Limberlost Swamp, now called the Limberlost Territories. 

Enjoy Gene's words with photographs of today. 

​
"I have seen coots running throughout a season in this swampy corner of a marsh, and it is as nearly typical of their location as any I know. The muck of such places is alive with worms, the grasses with insects, and the surrounding vines and bushes bear seed. It seems that birds of any habit might flourish there, and indeed I often have seen a little red-eyed vireo so busy in these bushes that I mam sure there was a nest and family, and when I landed and worked my way into the marsh I scared up a female Indigo finch [now known as an Indigo bunting] and soon found her nest in a thicket of blackberry and wild grape."

Coots at the Limberlost Swamp Nature Preserve. Photo by Randy Lehman.

Male Indigo bunting. 

"The five typical flowers growing in the water of the outer edge of all other vegetation are the arrowhead lily, blue flag, yellow lily, water hyacinth, white water lily, and differing members of their family. They are all beautiful plants of fine leaf and exquisite bloom; and there are some who will prefer one, and some another. My choice is the arrowhead, not only of marsh flowers, but among any, it ranks well toward first with me."

Blue flag at the Limberlost Swamp Nature Preserve. Photo by Terri Gorney.

Arrowroot at the Limberlost Swamp Wetland Preserve. 

Wild hyacinth growing in a ditch on an Amish farm. Photo by Terri Gorney.

This week's featured poet is L. A. Dubay. L. A. Dubay is a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist in Fort Wayne Indiana. She has a rewarding job working with people with disabilities. Her mission is to help people achieve their goals through recreation and leisure. 

Mother Tree

mother tree
shelter
natural shelter
spider and web
moth and gnat
nature's shelter

mother tree
humans within
unnatural 
her head first 
him feet first
a breech

mother tree
breech
unnatural act
in a natural setting
we plundered her
​searching for sensation

​Haiku

The cracks so remain
crevices of the river
rerouted for man

the lizard tail plant
filled with holes of the hungry
bugs that carry on

​The Wabash River at Rainbow Bottom 


The Indian Trail 

The Indian Trail
traders, hunters passage
into White-y world
Oh, how she came to welcome them
Oh, how they became unwanted
Oh, how their land and their wares were wanted.

The Indian Trail
poets, writers trespass
into Indian history
Oh, how they came to write
Oh, how they became curious
Oh, how they mourn and their hearts weep.

Savages, really. 

​The Way (it never was)

Rich in heritage and culture
The Indian way
The trail
The tears.

We relish the memory
wiped out
Relished 
too late.

Signs
Native heritage
learn about the way
it never was.
Learn about the way
white crime lies. 

Michael Brockley is this week's featured poet. He is a retired school psychologist who worked for 33 years in Adams and Wells Counties. His poems have appeared in such publications as Flying Island, Tipton Poetry Journal, Clementine Unbound, Panoplyzine, Jokes Review, Third Wednesday, Atticus Review, and Gargoyle. In addition, Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan and Local News: Poetry about Small Towns are among the anthologies which have included Brockley's work. 

I eavesdrop on tourist conversations about dowsing for water and a ghost town haunted by a stage coach driver hanged by a mob. The raccoon skull I dragged from the sycamore is pale, scoured by the way time ravished and raises life on a flood plain. The eye sockets are empty. My career has vanished into the memories old men carve into their erratic moods. Anagram puzzle solutions and the definition of "pinwheel" stored now among madras shirts and scenes from the Man with No Name movies. I examine the emptiness in the dead mammal's skull. The slope of the brainpan long and shallow for a creature so clever. Among our group, the trail guide catalogs plant names, companions for my trip back to a drafty house on a street not named for a saint or an outlaw. Reed canary grass, lizard's tail, smartweed. I watch my finger pass behind a clearweed stem while my shadow falls across the plant's path. Late caterpillars cling to wild cucumber leaves. In the morning, I will awaken to abandoned agendas from the due dates of my working life's labors. I will notice my maple has not turned red mid-way through October but the leaves it has shed are crimson. On the trail someone tells a joke about rattlesnakes. The tour guide warns against trusting nature. What will I make of myself now that I am no longer me. 

Smartweed

Curt Burnette led the Rainbow Bottom hike in October.  He is standing by one of the giant sycamore trees that is there. 

Tiffany visits the Ceylon Bridge whenever her Fort Wayne oldies station plays "Come and Get Your Love." she has bound her name into hearts above Alex, Kirk, and Loki. Beneath the word "Redbone" spray painted on the wall above the spot on the floorboards where the body summoned by a teenage seance fell from the ceiling into the shadows that cover the floor. The ash trees across the river bed have been hollowed and bored by emerald beetles, and the frogs that once sang evening love songs along the bank have migrated across the road in pursuit of mosquitos and no-see-ums. Now when she arrives at dusk, chanting the chorus in the voice she has huskied from a Virginia Slims habit, Tiffany sprays elaborate valentines on the bare spaces left on the sideboards by Sam and Kacey and Jason and Holly. She signs "What's the matter with your mind, with your sign?" And twirls in the space where the darkness and the sunlight meet as Lolly Vegas celebrates what the heart wants. As the doves in the rafters look over Tiffany's shoulders to see if they recognize the new name.   
​

This week's poet is Melissa Fey. Melissa is a an officer on the Friends of the Limberlost board. She has worked for Smith Brothers Furniture for over 40 years and is active in the community. The poems are inspired from the Ceylon Covered Bridge and Rainbow Bottom. 


History and the Covered Bridge

Built of large wooden beams
             Harvested from mature trees.
The River ran under it
             Although the purpose was for others to cross over it.
Abandoned as a source of transportation
             Now used to capture memories.
Once used to span the River
             Now its graffiti spans time.
An new kind of history it preserves
              As young people record their written words.

Exp: "we'll be young for the rest of our life"
                                       Caroline, Mandy, and Christine


Haiku

A magical world
Selfie inside Sycamore
Outside life goes on

Hiking the Bottom
Our presence detected
Jays and Squirrels protest
We continue undeterred

Leaves from Trees

Leaves, leaves big and small,
falling from trees short and tall.
Falling, suspended in space,
not being in their natural place.
Their colors of green, red and gold,
trees preparing for Winter's cold.
Littering the forest floor,
protecting the tree no more.
This year's season in the past,
their abundant life didn't last. 

Jeanne E. Akins is our featured poet this week. She lives in Geneva with her
husband Charles and is a tour guide at the Limberlost Cabin.  



Where did Gene's River Go?

River gone!
Where did it go?
Someone moved it long ago.
No fishing here.
No boats.
No bridges.
No skinny-dipping.
No rolled-up breeches.
Earth alone now makes a bed
For this river's sod-filled head.

Gene is gone!
Where did she go?
With her river long ago.
Yet she lives.
With books
With words.
With photographs
With stories told
And though the land is rearranged,
Gene kept her river never changed. 

Cover Our Losses

Make the bridge twice over
Look back and forth through time
Once a bridge with purpose
Now it bridges grime
Once it was important
Serving as a way
Now it serves scribbled words
"Sweet Nothings" on display
Standing on this covered bridge
Sadness covers me
Left alone it would be gone
Except its memory
The sense of loss by renovation
Is suddenly profound
Love isn't always better
The second time around



​My Haiku Hike

Bright sunlight;
Peeking, piercing revelations
In my eyes

Silhouetted trees above:
Branches raised to frighten me
I am small

Snapping twigs:
Happy cracking, popping sounds
​made by forest feet

Enjoy the poetry created by Laura Schwartz at Shari Wagner's poetry workshop on October 12 2019: "Writing Poems at Ceylon Covered Bridge and Rainbow Bottom" 

Laura is the head librarian in Geneva for the Adams Public Library System and is active in the community.  

Cathedral

Before entering the woods alone along
resolved riverbed, I hid my bicycle behind
the creek's ridge. Softened under worm

moon, braced for nettle's greetings, I hopped over
the cracked clay mud, cottonwoods enveloping canopy.
In the shade I would walk those hours alone, eating

flower heads, drinking from stems, chewing roots,
whispering my poems. Now together under hunter's
moon, this arc, this sanctuary still silences me.


Bottomland

My shadow passes 
easily through the days as
curious clearweed,

beneath hunter's moon,
this giant gray sycamore,
or sanctuary.

Where cacophony
of the crickets, birds and frogs
become our prayers.


Sanctuary

The open mouth

of a giant sycamore swallowed
us whole, on our bellies we slid
inside its sanctuary to explore each

other, our breath as quiet prayers
inside the silent weeping walls
of this dark bottomland cathedral.

Phosphorescent life alights against 
wood's porous lined decay. Our quiet
communion an intimate sight in this

cavernous emptiness, enveloped
in warmth looking up into the trunk's 
two mysteries that we embrace

as one of our own.





 

Photos were taken October 12 2019 at Rainbow Bottom along the Wabash River.

Thank you to Kimberley Roll for her sharing her January Limberlost eagle adventures in photographs. For our SANJO (Southern Adams Northern Jay Ouabache) Christmas Bird Count, we had 18 bald eagles tallied on the count on January 1 2020. In our SANJO CBC National Audubon Society circle, we now have five bald eagle nests and a sixth nest only a couple miles outside the circle. Gene Stratton-Porter would be amazed at the number of bald eagles and the patience of Kimberley to photograph them. Gene would be envious! Gene had to travel to northern Michigan to see bald eagles and was never able to photograph them. 

Juvenile bald eagle

Adult bald eagle. One of the Loblolly Marsh pair. 

Bald eagle by the Loblolly Creek. 

Juvenile bald eagle

Juvenile bald eagle

Bald eagles

Loblolly Marsh bald eagle pair

Juvenile bald eagle

Invitation to Rainbow Bottom

Smell the dank, dark soil
of the cracked river bottom

and enter nature's grasp, your
tromping boot soles sinking

into mud. See the flames of
autumn ivy spread near your path

beside the water's forced banks,
straightened, pooling in

memories of where it once was.
Savor the warmth of sun reaching

through enchanted branches 
and waking up creatures dulled

by coolness of night.
Find the caterpillar on a stem

and the birds in the branches. Listen
to the Brown Creeper as he climbs

and the low chatter of song sparrows
among red berries. Watch for the last

serenade of small frogs, for paths
that lead through growths

of lizard tails. Poke your finger
in the mouth of a false snapdragon

and lightly stroke the prickles
on a pudgy cucumber----baby hedgehog

of the plant world. Walk around
beaver-chewed trees

and a cavernous sycamore. Follow
your guide into the hollow

womb carved by floodwaters, into
darkness that suckles a cacophony

of DNA. Hold the slim green
song of a bush cicada

and the shadow of a clear weed.
Hold the song and the shadow--

hold them in Rainbow's Bend
till they become the flight

of a bald eagle
circling above the Wabash

on a wind river in the sky.


Collaborative Poem by Shari Wagner's 10-12-19 workshop.
"Writing Poems at Ceylon Covered Bridge and Rainbow Bottom."

Beaver chewed tree.

A touch of autumn.

Caterpillar

Wild cucumber

Wabash River at Rainbow Bottom

Song sparrow by Kimberley Roll.

Bald eagle in flight by Kimberley Roll. 

Guide naturalist Curt Burnette at one of the giant sycamore trees in Rainbow Bottom. 

Ceylon Covered Bridge. Poetry group is exploring the area with a morning hike on October 12 2019. 

Poetry at the Limberlost

During 2017 and again in 2019, I had the privilege of offering poetry workshops inspired by the ecology and history of the Limberlost. These workshops were sponsored by Arts in the Parks and Historic Sites, a program of the Indiana Arts commission. Much of workshops' success was do to the promotion efforts of Friends of the Limberlost and to the expertise of Curt Burnette, Bill Hubbard, and Jeanne Akins, staff members who served as guides as participants visited the Cabin or walked a trail. Each workshop included the discussion of prompts and models and individual and collaborative writing activities. By scrolling backward, you can read some of the poems from these workshops.

In preparing for workshops, I spent time reading Gene Stratton-Porter's nonfiction books. I was amazed by what she observed in nature through her patience and attentiveness. A story that's particularly special to me is her account of seeing what may have been the last known passenger pigeon. Until reading about his experience, I had assumed (like most people) that the last living passenger pigeon was "Martha," a caged bird on exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo. What follows is a persona poem inspired by an account in Tales You Won't Believe. 

Gene Stratton-Porter Identifies the Last Known Passenger Pigeon

"Martha, the Passenger Pigeon, passed away on September 1, 1914, in the Cincinnati Zoo. She was believed to be the last living individual of her species after two male companions had died in the same zoo in 1910. Martha was a celebrity at the zoo, attracting long lines of visitors."
                                                                                   ----Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

I saw him three miles west of the Limberlost
with my camera set to film the brooding hen goldfinch.
A whistling of wings and then that singular bird
settled on the telephone wire above me, I recognized
his bright red beak and feet, hue of blue-gray feathers,
distinctive See? See? As a farm girl, I heard that call
when flocks thick as storm clouds eclipsed the sun.
Fervent wings rumbled in ceaseless thunder. Roosting
birds broke limbs and toppled trees. See? See?
they whimpered in our neighbor's yard---dozens
clubbed and captured, with broken legs, backs,
and wings, soon to be dropped into the pot-pie kettle.
See? See? See? this one cried, cocking his head
and looking in every direction. But by then, Martha
had been shipped to the Smithsonian inside a block
of ice. Among Objects of Wonder she was paired
with an Ectopistes migratorius shot years before she
hatched. If I could have shifted my camera, then
you could see for yourself how the last passenger pigeon
was nameless and perched by himself on a wire.
How iridescent shone the bronze patches on his throat
with nothing but the sun behind him.

By Shari Wagner
Indiana Poet Laureate 2016-2017   

​

LIMBERLOST VIEWS
~Inspired by Bill Hubbard's Photographs

Oriole
Little and yellow
mindful but lost
gliding through the clouds

By Lydia Shaffer
        * * *
Swan on the lake
White, curved neck
Ice floats by

By Callie Shaffer
        * * *
Monkey cry, a flash of red
Swooping through the trees
Pileated woodpecker

By Simon Brainerd
       * * * 
The Old Schoolhouse
crumbling walls
wood patched windows
I stand
empty
floor covered in greens
rotting wood planks
empty
I stand

By Emily Scase
      * * * 
Tiger swallowtail on
the purple flower
smelling the butterfly bush.

By Ella Shaffer
      * * * 
Bald Eagle
Bald Eagle creeped
feathers shadowed, banana nose
Perched on leaning tree

By Allisyn Scase
      * *  *
Swoop, glide, float
lovely white feathers
Tundra swan afloat

By Kaity Scase
       * * *
   The Sunset
Bright and bold
Orange and blue
Heavenly sunset to look to

By Abby Waymire
          * * *
   Cabin in the Dusk
As the lights flicker
at night the owl watches
them while they sleep

By Josiah Scase 


TWELVE SNAPSHOTS OF LIMBERLOST CABIN

I remember the limestone fence
traveling around the house---
dirty, unique, and weird
to the human eye
but to cute, crawling creatures
it's a gateway to a world full of love.
                    * * *
I remember the old wood smoker---
like a small red fire extinguisher
or a red cylinder.
                   * * *
I remember the conservatory's
colossal windowpanes
with ferns and fluttering movement
all about.
                    * * * 
I remember pink fragrant flowers
and,through the window, a tall oak tree.
                    * * *
I remember arrowheads painting
pictures of the past. 
                    * * *
I remember skillful ceilings, artistic
designs leaping out of placid plaster.
                    * * *
I remember the elegant moths
of gorgeous colors
and delicate wings.
                    * * *
I remember the luna moth
captured in the moment 
like a photograph of nature.
                    * * * 
I remember the pictures of Gene,
Jeannette, and Charles, close family
frozen in time.
                    * * *
I remember Gene's painting
of blue irises where guests 
would slumber when visiting.
                    * * *
I remember the glass doll rocking
near the fireplace in the sitting room.
                    * * *
I remember stories
like moths tucked into cocoons
waiting to hatch.

Collaborative Poem from Participants
In Shari Wagner's November 13 2019 
Workshop for Kids "At Limberlost Cabin"


DAUGHTER OF MRS. PORTER

I remember the glass doll
rocking by the fireplace
in the sitting room.

I remember the playhouse
under the porch floor
sipping on tea in cups.

I remember Mom painting
watercolor pictures of caterpillars crawling through
the swampy grass.

I remember a screechy owl
flying through the window
to see the candle.

I was Jeannette.

By Ella Shaffer


THE SCREECH OWL

I remember. 
I heard Gene talking to me in the midst of the night.
I thought about going in or not. Later I glided
softly though the window. I stared at the candle.
I realized I was trapped! Then in the morning
Gene took a picture of me while I was sleeping.

By Josiah Scase


FREEDOM

I am ready to get out.
My legs squishing together.
My wings aching to be free.
I started to scratch.
It feels as if a lifetime has passed.
I am ready to breathe.
Emerging
I am greeted by flashing lights.
And two round eyes.

By Lydia Shaffer


 THE SURGEON'S SWORD

I am old, I am worn, I am blunt.
I am guilty.

As I gaze from my mantel, I begin to dull.
Am I guilty?
It becomes official,
The red stain, though washed off,
Lingers.

By Simon Brainerd


THE PIANO

Once, I was beautiful. My black and white dress shone
like the sun, reflecting off a lake. The young ones banged on me,
producing imperfect chords. Soon, the banging became music.
I sang the same songs. Christmastime was my favorite season.
I sang "Jungle Bells," "Silent Night," and "Away in a Manger."
Then, one by one, the little ones grew up and moved away.
I was alone in the house. Now, my only companions are the mice.
My once radiant dress now faded and dirty. My once beautiful voice
now out of tune. And yet, though my pedals are broken
and my spirit crushed, the memories of happier times live on. 

By Callie Shaffer

THE MOTH

I remember when I was free
Flying through the night
No worries, carefree
But now I'm trapped 
Trapped under a glass panel
My color slowly fading 
My beauty still there but quickly disintegrating
I have been trapped for so many years
Just staring.

By Abby Waymire


MIGHTIEST OF SWORDS

Cabin in the wild swamp
Birds calling from the tree
Take the brick path to the cabin
See.
The rusted Civil War sword
Sitting on the mantle of the old brick fireplace
Look closely at the blade
Noting the memory of Charles D. Porter's dad
A Union Captain, a surgeon
Feel the symbolic, sharp, sword
Marking the furnace with self-respect
Peace.
Why leave a sword for us?
What does it mark?
Leaders become great not because of heir power but 
Because of their ability to empower others.
A leader is one who knows the way
goes the way
Shows the way.

By Allisyn Scase


THE GUARDIAN

As I lay against the wall
I hear laughter traveling through the house
I see guests come and go
I watch over the sleeping body that lay in bed
The restless nights and calm ones
I saw them admire me, and I wonder if some fear me
I watch the humans put on their riches
The owls on the headboard stare at me
The moth lay between the owls in sleep
I feel like the guardian of the room

By Kaitlyn Scase