Inside Gene Stratton-Porter's Cabin

Charles and Geneva

The man behind the woman of the Limberlost mails her love letters for three years before they marry. She wears slacks when she carries her box camera into the loblolly. This woman who keeps stuffed eagles and herons in her writing room. He wears a bowtie and a gentleman's hat in a photograph of his baseball team. Covers his face with a perfumed scarf to pose vulture chicks for her photographs. He finds gas in the lob to pay for her cabin. Hires a handyman to build her limestone fence. When she preserves marsh moths on black velvet, he mounts her collection on a wall across from their bed. Their lawn abounds with coneflowers and daylilies. With the acrobatics of cardinals and wrens. Every evening a parrot flits from writing room to conservatory. Every story she writes begins with flight across a blank page. 

​By Michael Brockley  

​Brenner

After Shiloh. After I'd seen too many cornfields razed by cannon balls. After the hollers of men dying slow and hard, I aimed at the Rebel colors, closed my eyes, and squeezed the trigger. By the time the Porters hired me as groundskeeper, I'd already failed to husband my wife and father my children. They gave me a room beside a stable with stirrups and buggy whips close to hand, and a small bed where loneliness might find comfort. The Bird Woman set me to building a fence around the cabin. I stacked limestone blocks but left gaps in the wall so chickadees and wrens could perch in the hollow spaces. A man can find a certain peace from stacking stones. From currying a carriage horse. From auguring holes for the martins in a birdhouse built from scraps. In the evenings I sat in a breezeway, waiting, for my war ghosts to settle the trouble in their souls. Once, a Carolina parakeet swooped through the boundary wall. I never saw it again. 

By Michael Brockley

A Tour Guide Day at the Limberlost Cabin​

I open the Cabin,
I pretend.
I say, "Good Morning."
I say it low in case someone hears me.
Room by room I walk,
Flipping switches on and off.
Unlocking doors.
Down comes the Closed sign.
Swish, swish, swish.
Porches swept.
Check the rooms.
Set the thermostat. 
Wait.
A car parks.
Sometimes just one traveler.
Often two.
Families.
Friends of the Friends.
Fans of stories written long ago.
Or just the Curious.
They come.
I tell the  Porter story.
I introduce Gene, Charles and Jeannette
Room by room,
Story by story.
The Cabin plays its part.
The stories live.
​The Porters live.
The visitors visit the past.
The Porters make new friends.
The guests leave.
Up goes the Closed sign.
Room by room I walk,
Flipping switches off and on.
Doors are locked. 
I pretend.
I say, "Good Night."
I say it low in case someone hears me.

By Jeanne E. Akins


Silk Butterfly

Silk butterfly on a writer's desk,
Ink well and pen close by,
who would guess you were designed 
To wipe the ink pen dry?

Beautiful and soft
Delicately styled
Too lovely to be ever used--
No ink marks are revealed.

Silk butterfly I'm glad,
Your owner was so wise,
To keep your beauty all in tact
To bless my happy eyes.

By Jeanne E. Akins


Shari Wagner Gardens

I'm plumbing poems
from your hearts 
Letting the words
Find their way out
Turning the soil
In creative gardens
The same way I plowed 
And planted my own one
Together we'll harvest our written thoughts
Onto pages replete
With the words crafted
To make a word feast.

By Jeanne E. Akins


Gene's Cricket Boot Jack - I

Most of your critters are light and they flutter,
But I am quite still: your heavy de-mudder.
A cricket of iron with two forward sprouts,
I'm here to relieve you of boots that 'been out. 

By Stacia Gorge


Gene's Cricket Book Jack - II

Wisely,
she wore leather
and lived
each day
in the swamp.
-
You stood ready
each night,
to release
her confinement
that aided 
her joy.

By Stacia Gorge

Conservatory

Place where magic gathers. Green winged
Being standing TALL, s p r e a d i n g  w i d e
across their pews striving to touch the Light!

We bathe in life their vibrant overflow
Plants, trees, flowers in the conservatory
of the Stratton-Porter home.

By Karen Powell

Burled Wood Bureau
(or Timber Tension in the Limberlost)

CONSERVE these trees and wetlands of the Limberlost!
PRESERVE the butterflies, birds, and moths!
DESERVE now I the finest furniture and wood ply
that money made from my cries can by.


Stuffed Eagle

Once in flight,
Thanks to your bullet
I plummeted----old school style,
Which means you don't get up again
Even after the gamer reaches
the next level.

By Karen Powell

Charlie's Arrowhead Collection

Stone points no longer hunting.
Objects hidden under soil for years now seeing the light of day.
Hours spent walking the fields to find.
Tedious chipping of stone on stone.
A man's appreciation of an ancient craft.
Placing the points in a pleasing display.
A collection made in the 1900s of Points crafted thousands of years before. 

By Melissa Fey


Limberlost
(A Land that I Love)

A magical place of land and waters where birds and bugs abound.
The sounds of nature, babbling brooks and calling birds,
Where native plants reclaim the deserted farmlands.
A place migrating birds rest before continuing their flight.
A place of quiet woods and forest floor,
Along with sunlit prairies full of blooms.
The stillness of Winter, blanketed in snow.
Frost etching patterns on the ice.
Wind forming mounds out of the snow.
Unseen animals leaving tracks to follow.
The Limberlost.

​By Melissa Fey


Moths and Gene

Moths, delicate creatures, erratic flight and beautiful in color.
Gene's fascination and waiting patiently for them to light.
Moths that only come out at night in the soft moonlight.
Gene excited to see her favorite Cecropia moth.
Moths feeding on sweet smelling nectar. 
Gene expanding the world's knowledge of these smallest of God's creatures.

By Melissa Fey


Pheromone Phooling
(A short ode to a male moth that thought it was finding a mate only to discover Gene Stratton Porter
ripe with spraying of pheromones from a female moth)

Is that a mate I smell?
From far away he flies,
He cannot tell
And hopes the wind won't lie.

He arrives to find 
Not the love he expects
Just a lady so kind
No reward for his treks.

By Melissa Fey

​
Poetry created at "Inside Gene Stratton-Porter's Cabin" Poetry Workshop by Shari Wagner on July 13 2019.