Saturday, June 03, 2006

Aaron,

Thanks for the comment. Sorry it’s taken some days to get back to you. Allison and I have been camping and kayaking on Lake Jocassee, SC. Stayed at the primitive Double Springs campground. Paddled to Thompson Creek Falls, sunned on the rocks, swam the cool lake water. Saw lots of butterflies, including a zebra swallowtail (my first sighting of one). And, oddly, saw ten or more snakes--which is strange because though I frequently paddle blackwater swamps which are rumored to be rife with reptiles, I rarely see snakes. The snakes we saw at Jocassee were beautiful--one Eastern king snake and possibly a timber rattler (black phase) in a rocky ledge at a stream (we didn’t get close enough to verify him), and as many as nine water snakes, probably Midland, but again, I’m not sure.
Simple questions--”Where do you see yourself in this landscape of fire? Does the book explore the complex longleaf ecosystem or is it more of a personal journey?”--are hard to answer. Dr. John Elder, a teacher and friend from Middlebury College, asked me similar questions, so you’re in great company. By nature I’m not introspective, and I’m spending some time struggling to answer and draft a reply--another reason for the late response.
As a writer, I’m not only in a vast historical landscape but in a bookscape of other nature writers; and if I have any sense I’m humbled by both. If I may point to one writer and say, “That’s what I aspire to,” it would be A. R. Ammons.
In Ammons' poetry, the speaker is often walking in a huge, ever-changing landscape, asking questions and getting answers from elemental forces such as the wind. Ammons doesn’t write with a megaphone or an agenda. He’s inquiring and humorous--traits which come from a humility which comes from understanding one’s place in the universe.
I’m not a natural scientist. My method is to field-trip with those who are, to watch and ask questions and faithfully record what I see and hear. My motive for writing is like Ammons’ in “Identity,” a poem about spider webs:

it is
wonderful
how things work: I will tell you
about it
because

it is interesting

It’s beyond me to mount a campaign to save longleaf forests, though, like rain forests and arctic ice, they need to be saved. The banner of ecological salvation is borne by more knowledgeable and authoritative people, by past environmentalists like Muir and Leopold, by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Longleaf Alliance, The Nature Conservancy, the SC Prescribed Fire Council and others, and by the score of people who work and talk in these pages.
I guess the answer to both your questions, then, is “Yes.” I’m on a personal journey through a complex ecosystem--but I hope my focus is always on the landscape. If my book helps promote longleaf habitat, that’s great. But like Edward Abbey, I want to spend half my time in the wild just having fun.

Den

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