Memories are translations. We gather much and miss more. I originally compiled this archive in spring of 2022 for a final project in a course on environmental histories and values. I did it mostly for myself. I wanted to attend to what I had picked up throughout the pandemic — people, places, poems, photographs. These fragments are re-memories of ecosystems and relational nests.
Recent Articles
A Visit to “The New York Earth Room”
Today’s itinerary: visit Earth Room, where a layer of soil, two feet thick, has occupied a gallery in SoHo since 1977.
The Apple Orchard
When we moved back to Michigan, we bought an old farmhouse on five acres. I was still married then, with three young daughters and soon two more. After we had settled in, I planted an apple orchard. The farmhouse was a white Greek Revival with four bedrooms and an old lilac out front. It stood on a barely perceptible rise […]
The Quiet Season
The days are short and cold, and it snowed last Sunday. The tree canopies, now brown, have thinned. The birds have begun migrating southwards — I hear their calls from my room, where I sip coffee — and people in puffy parkas rush to and fro along the sidewalks. Gray clouds float low in the sky. Although the December solstice […]
The Felled and the Fallen
Ring in two by twos,Twinning from the same root. Count the yearsOh! The years —You can only see themWhen they’re sliced in two.Cut down, dismembered,See what they’ve been through: The summers, the winters,The hunters, the gatherers,To them: time is celluloseAnd the sound of water coming close. I see you. Your bark couldn’t save you.What you built over the agesWouldn’t hold; […]