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    Cold to the Bone: Poems by John Bates
    Cold to the Bone: Poems by John Bates
    Cold to the Bone: Poems by John Bates
    Ebook203 pages48 minutes

    Cold to the Bone: Poems by John Bates

    By John Mark Bates and Carole E Sauers

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    About this ebook

    Bates' poems express what it means to belong to the natural world, to attempt to be a "card-carrying" member rather than an intruder or merely a tourist. The intersection of science and spirit is where these poems reside, and while they offer depth and insight, they ask an equal number of questions.

    This is Bates

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherManitowish River Press
    Release dateApr 19, 2017
    ISBN9780965676380
    Cold to the Bone: Poems by John Bates
    Author

    John Mark Bates

    John Bates is the author of seven books and a contributor to seven others, all of which focus on the natural history of the Northwoods. He's worked as a naturalist in Wisconsin's Northwoods for 27 years, leading an array of trips all designed to help people further understand the remarkable diversity and beauty of nature, and our place within it. John won the 2006 Ellis/Henderson Outdoor Writing Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers for his book Graced by the Seasons: Spring and Summer in the Northwoods. He has served on the Board of Trustees for the Wisconsin Nature Conservancy and the Wisconsin Humanities Council, and now serves on the Board of the River Alliance of Wisconsin, the Board of the Northwoods Land Trust, and the Board for the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame. John and his wife Mary live on the Manitowish River in northern Wisconsin where they raised two daughters.

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      Book preview

      Cold to the Bone - John Mark Bates

      Cold to the Bone

      © 2017 by John Bates. All rights reserved.

      Except for short excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

      Book and cover design: Carole Sauers/Penny Lane Studio

      Cover photo: Jacquard weavings by Mary Burns

      Bates, John, 1951-

      Cold to the Bone written by John Bates;

      Jacquard weavings by Mary Burns

      ISBN 978-0-9656763-7-3 (softcover)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934290

      Manitowish River Press

      4245N State Highway 47

      Mercer, WI 54547

      www.manitowish.com

      Printed in the United States of America

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      •

      To my best friend,

      my partner in botany and birding

      and paddling and exploring the world,

      in all things creative and meaningful,

      my wife, Mary.

      •

      Water

      •

      Pandemonium

      The frogs are chorusing tonight.

      The peepers chime like ten thousand sleigh bells

      rung by ecstatic Salvation Army volunteers.

      Meanwhile, the toads trill at diverging pitches,

      harmonizing in drones like a hall of chanting Buddhists.

      All night they sing.

      Whenever I wake up, they’re still there

      in the dark and the damp

      under the moon and stars

      stagelighting their Dionysian debauch.

      I have tried to sneak up on them

      to witness the passion that has brought them,

      and their thousands of generations before,

      to these ephemeral ponds.

      But even in their single mindedness,

      they always hear me

      and go stone quiet.

      If I wait long enough,

      one will give in to his need for a mate

      and begin singing again.

      Then the choral dam breaks,

      and the din commences

      because it must.

      It’s a game of Russian roulette,

      this fertilizing of eggs.

      The bet is that the pools won’t dry up

      before the great metamorphosis,

      from fins to legs

      from gills to lungs

      from water to forest.

      All this.

      Then, without apparent discussion,

      they agree to gather here again,

      next spring,

      when a south wind will warm air and water

      triggering their tumultuous voices

      like a thousand drunken guests at a lavish wedding party

      breathing rapture in the dark spring night.

      •

      If You Listen

      If you listen –

      you may be amazed.

      It depends on what you brought to the shore.

      It changes for me every time.

      The other day I brought the memory of a neighbor

      who said something I didn’t like

      and now I’ve made it a hit song,

      number one on my playlist.

      And so I couldn’t see the lake that day,

      even though it was right there.

      But the next day, the wind was picking up the lily leaves

      and waving them,

      along with the bulrushes which were bowing again and again

      by the thousands, I swear!

      in a great surging buoyancy

      and I felt

      like they were carrying me to the shore,

      where, if I wanted,

      I could jump on the backs of the tall grasses

      with a smile as broad as the rippling prairie,

      the prairie which races in undulations,

      undulations that if they were chords of music

      would carry me away singing to the Pacific,

      where,

      I remember now,

      I visited in my boyhood.

      The ocean was full of diving terns, circling pelicans, whales spouting

      all the world coming and going

      and all I had to do,

      just like here,

      where ospreys dive, cranes sail, sturgeons jump,

      was watch,

      was listen.

      •

      Bog Walking

      Stepping barefoot onto the bog mat,

      the ground is now a joyful unfamiliarity,

      undulating in response to my movement

      like a dance partner

      like a stone dropped in the water.

      The water oozes ice cold around my ankles,

      the moss cushioning my steps

      compressing-expanding,

      exhaling-inhaling

      like a colossal sponge

      like an echo.

      It’s quiet out here.

      I’m looking for rose pogonias

      with their fringed tongues.

      But what I really want to find

      are dragon’s mouth orchids.

      The name alone entices me –

      a dragon hiding in all this cold and wet and acid.

      Imagine a dragon’s

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