Caylors' Limberlost Poems

Letter to Gene Stratton-Porter

I knew where you lived my whole life
Your name as familiar as my relative's
But this tomboy didn't want to read
About any Limberlost girl and her Laddie
When the coonskin cap boys were showing off
On the frontier playground.

Who knew you could outshoot the boys
With your lens and maybe even your pistol?
You didn't need the vote to explore
Your own frontier any more than you needed
Schooling to be a scientist or a shapely
Smile to lure a rich husband who'd fund
Your appetite for adventure. Snakes couldn't
Scare you away from the lovely swamp things
Whispers that would've wounded me a century later
Flowed past you like the wind ruffling
Your unapologetic air
but never taming your nature.

Why didn't I get to know you sooner?
If you could be here now would you gripe
On this hike about all that was lost?
Or would you embrace those who returned 
With just a bit of encouragement
Diminished yet still recognizable 
To the swampland reunion?

By Tanya Isch Caylor


Nature's cafeteria

Walking through Loblolly Marsh
I thought I saw a spider's web
But the tiny caterpillars inside weren't victims -
This was their tent,
Keeping predators off their juicy leaf.

Those Eastern Tent Worms looked
like kids in a school cafeteria
clustered together, crazily gobbling
Climbing all over each other
Not sitting still for nothing. 

Overhead a drop of water hung
Like a chandelier
Reflecting sunlight
From the ceiling.

Such a big tent for such a tiny worm
But it's a huge crowd
Feeding, growing, dreaming
Of the day they take flight as moths.

By Cassie Caylor