Sunday, July 22, 2012

one clover and a bee



Remember our frog pond in the Catskills? (I wrote about it here.)  There's a word used to describe pond life, succession, that in this context means the progressive replacement of one biological community by another. When a new pond forms naturally, plant life grows as wind and birds carry seeds. Those plants are food for insects, frogs, and turtles that come upon them in their travels, and stay. The pond habitat is dynamic, constantly changing. Ponds are shallow enough that rooted plants can grow in them, and eventually they will be covered with vegetation, and, over hundreds of years, become marshland and then grassy prairie or forest. Or, as Emily Dickinson wrote:


   To make a prairie it takes a clover 
   and one bee,
   One clover, and a bee,
   and revery.
   The revery alone will do
   if bees are few.







16 comments:

  1. Had no idea that Dickenson did pond recipes.

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    1. :) She would have liked rooftop gardens.

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  2. Hello Jen:
    All pond life is, as you point out here, so very exciting. And Emily Dickinson's poetry is always most appealing.

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  3. You've made that poem much more meaningful. Thank you.

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  4. What a nice surprise to read about ponds. I once made a bathtub pond at my last home and a week later water bugs were in the water and it amazed me how they found it, a pond attracts all sorts of creatures to it.

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  5. love the poem. it's the little things, isn't it....

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  6. Your description about how to improve these ponds in nature gibes me revery. And the poem makes it being further ...

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  7. I saw that lovely poem sprayed onto a wall in Amsterdam years ago.....

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  8. Love this post! Isn't nature wonderful?

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  9. The scene unfolds before my eyes as if I was actually seeing it, just like Emily Dickinson's poem.

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  10. A lovely post ... and such a beautiful poem. M x

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  11. Such a beautiful thought. Thank you for bringing it to us. I hope you have a wonderful day.

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  12. I think we'll have to have more poems here. we seem to need them.

    I do.

    xo jane

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  13. I am touched by how many of you enjoyed the poem and the poem/pond connection. Jane says more? I can do that.

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