From the book:
Instructions for the Hydrologic Cycle
Listen to the water
running in the kitchen sink
as your partner does the dishes.
Imagine its path
through pipes to the
treatment plant,
its release into Spring Creek,
Juniata River, Susquehanna,
its progress to the Chesapeake Bay.
Imagine oysters and crabs,
then the ocean, and the sun
pouring down
and vapors rising.
Imagine the formation of clouds,
changing shapes (you can make
a game of this), the winds
chasing clouds landward,
the ascent of mountain slopes
to cooler air,
the resulting condensation,
the snow drifting down,
the melt, the percolation
through soil, the uptake
through roots and the release
of transpiration through plant leaves.
The project is complete
when you take a drink
of water and taste it.
Go ahead—you can
do it now.
For free.
You might also help
with the dishes.
Ian Marshall is a professor of English and Environmental Studies at Penn State Altoona. A former president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, Ian is the author of four books: Story Line: Exploring the Literature of the Appalachian Trail (Virginia, 1998); Peak Experiences: Walking Meditations on Literature, Nature, and Need (Virginia, 2003); Walden by Haiku (Georgia, 2009); and Border Crossings: Walking the Haiku Path on the International Appalachian Trail (Hiraeth, 2012). These are hybrid works combining scholarly inquiry with either personal narrative or haiku. He is also the editor of an anthology of environmental writing called Reading Shaver’s Creek: Ecological Reflections from an Appalachian Forest. His poems, haiku, and haibun have been published in several journals, among them ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, Terra Nova, Spirit, Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, Frogpond, and White Lotus. When he’s not busy playing at being a scholar, Ian spends his time playing guitar, writing songs, hiking, biking, or kayaking. And of course, reading—preferably about people playing guitar, writing songs, hiking, biking, kayaking, or otherwise engaging with the natural world.
Circumambulations
is an 80 page hand-stitched paperbook with spine - $16.00
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