Song of the St. Croix: Poems from ‘Reading the River’

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Thank you to everyone who came to ‘Reading the River‘ last Thursday. It was a cold and rainy night and we were competing with the Vikings-Packers game, but ArtReach St. Croix’s Stillwater gallery was pretty full.

Four folks shared their work – including Susan Armington, whose paintings she created based on her 2013 residency at the Pine Needles cabin are on display until October 11, Laurie Allmann, the first-ever artist-in-residence at Pine Needles – and many in the audience tried their hand at writing short haiku afterward.

Thank you to Susan and Laurie, as well as Bill McCarthy, for reading. Thanks to everyone – including my two-year-old daughter – for listening attentively, even when I was reading. And thank you to the St. Croix Watershed Research Station, including director Dan Engstrom and Jim Almendinger for attending, and Sharon Mallman, the heart and soul of the Pine Needles residency. Lastly, thanks to Diana Hatchitt for being our volunteer chaperone, and ArtReach executive director Heather Rutledge for making things run smoothly.

Let’s do it again sometime. Here are the poems written by attendees. My own works are below that.

Sunscreen: who needs it? / I should have a tan by now — / hot July — sunburn! #stxhaiku

— St. Croix 360 (@stcroix360) October 3, 2014

(Above haiku by Kate Seitz.)

Reflected are birds / Above; while mussels exist / Through the looking glass – Jim A #stxhaiku

— St. Croix 360 (@stcroix360) October 3, 2014

Brown St. Croix water / White long legs, dangling below / Disappear with depth – Jim A. #stxhaiku

— St. Croix 360 (@stcroix360) October 3, 2014

Summer falls down hard / Winter springs up with fury / Squeezed are fall and spring – Jim A. #stxhaiku

— St. Croix 360 (@stcroix360) October 3, 2014

The green fades slowly / Autumn fireworks exploding / To blind us briefly – Melissa May #stxhaiku

— St. Croix 360 (@stcroix360) October 3, 2014

Liquor of forests, / River sipped, gulped, and swallowed / quenches thirsting souls. – Nel Van Zee #stxhaiku

— St. Croix 360 (@stcroix360) October 3, 2014

In this space I am / aware of all the wonders / the wilder promise – Laurie Allmann #stxhaiku

— St. Croix 360 (@stcroix360) October 3, 2014

I like my puppy / Puppy likes licking my hand / Warm tongue, wet face, Arf! –
Annika Seitz #stxhaiku

— St. Croix 360 (@stcroix360) October 3, 2014

Instagram, Twitter / The river knows none of these / I connect outside. – Kate Seitz #stxhaiku

— St. Croix 360 (@stcroix360) October 3, 2014

Tannic creek rushing / Astringent mist, larch, balsam / Balsam tonic draught – Slim Van Zee #stxhaiku

— St. Croix 360 (@stcroix360) October 3, 2014

A mob of crows comes / "go away, go away, go" / the young eagle sits – Heather Rutledge #stxhaiku

— St. Croix 360 (@stcroix360) October 3, 2014

Hook sinks through the muck / Eyed by a catfish — A bite! / Tasted like algae – Cynthia Dahle #stxhaiku

— St. Croix 360 (@stcroix360) October 3, 2014

gray, cool air sweeps / Holding me there; frozen. / Memories keep telling more and more – Diana Hatchitt #stxhaiku

— St. Croix 360 (@stcroix360) October 3, 2014

The poems I read:

A haiku about one of the most magical moments I experienced on the river this summer, when my friend Slim and I celebrated the last day of the year that the sun would set after 8 p.m. with an evening float.

Floating slowly past
A family of sandhills
Watching each other

This one is a tanka, a five-line poem that developed in Japan in the seventh century. Haiku came later, a shortened version of tanka. I wrote this about a night a month ago with a good friend going through hard times.

Standing at Log House
Silver river slipping past
Black woods, yellow trees
Frogs and owls sing lullabies
Soothing two impeded hearts

Here is a haiku about the first trip I took this year, back in April:

The ice gone last week
Fast, cold and fully flooded
Out before the birds

And one about a couple days spent exploring one of the St. Croix’s wild tributaries in northern Wisconsin:

Totogatic spring
Sharp bends below high sand banks
Willows and warblers

Here is another five-line tanka about the afternoon this summer that Katie and I took our two-year-old daughter Annika down the river for the first time in her life:

Deep in the floodplain
A tree cracks – crashes to earth
Cranes cry urgently
You and I know this old song
But hear it for the first time