Sense of Wonder in the Field
Poetic inspiration on Timber Point in autumn
“The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities… If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.”
-Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us
If you turn off Rt 1 North in Biddeford, Maine on to Rt 9 going South, you follow an expanse of Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge property along the Little River and finally arrive at Timber Point- a peninsula jutting into the Gulf of Maine. Once you’ve followed the trail from the parking area maybe half a mile, you can look out to Timber Island; and if the tide is low, you can walk across. But don’t be fooled by Mother Nature, as high tide comes and engulfs your passage and you must wait hours to then cross back to Timber Point at low tide. Time is of the essence!
Our life can be so predictable once we have the coordinates from our GPS, our clock and the tide charts at Biddeford Pool. But what happens when we lose predictability and wallow in the poetry of the moment…
When time is simply a bend of light,
a planet shift as
the bronze-leafed autumn oak
burns bright under the slate sky.
The sand patterns of the ebbing tide
echo the particular wind that flows
across the Little River estuary today,
not like yesterday.
The tracks there could be yours or mine,
or fox, coon, deer crossing to the other side
when the low tide gives passage, when the sea holds its breath
before it crashes us back to its fury since the moon made it so.
Precious little time to listen when the seas are rising,
when we could become island people for the breadth of one tidal pull.
Sounds enchanting, but what about the exigency of the global climate in this moment…exactly what Rachel Carson would write about if she were on this sweet but increasingly threatened planet, whose pending demise is so entirely beyond DDT. We walk this spit of land here in Biddeford and contemplate how no (wo)man is an island after all, and this land here jutting out into the Gulf of Maine is part of a much greater complexity of flyways, fractured landscapes and ecologies.
Carson’s brilliance was her remarkable ability to meld and blend, artfully weave scientific knowledge and the conveyance of such with her poetic expression as she described a sense of place…and of wonder.
The Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge is so aptly named as its conservation mission is so deep and wide with its protection of threatened and endangered species, marshland management to buffer rising tides, land protection and biologists to administer this. This Little River unit of the refuge here in Biddeford is only one of many plots of land throughout southern Maine including Saco, Kittery and Wells.
Meanwhile, it is a place where many hearts converge; it’s a place where people have returned every year to find their sense of belonging to the land and its beauty. It is a place where visitors walk that trail in Wells in a one-mile meditation, like taking a nature bath for just an hour. Our biologists in the field hold the data and our poets speak to the heart… may they both weave a deeper commitment to protecting what we love.
As the day unfolds and our walk at Timber Point is punctuated by our car door slamming, we are reminded that the science we apply in these protected public lands is further secured by the poetic and sometimes prophetic voice of courageous people like Rachel Carson, whose writing is deeply woven into our collective conservation consciousness. Her love of the rocky shores and tide pools of our beloved state of Maine are etched in our minds and hearts as well.
Timber Point Trial Map: https://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/Region_5/NWRS/North_Zone/Rachel_Carson/PDFs/Timber%20Point%20Trail%20Map%20directions.pdf
Sense of Wonder Art Contest Info:https://www.fws.gov/nwrs/threecolumn.aspx?id=6442464640
Anne Post Poole is a volunteer with the Friends of Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. She was the Chief Librarian of the US Fish and Wildlife Service for nearly twenty years, working out of the Service’s National Conservation Training Center until she moved to southern Maine in 2015. Anne helped support the science in the field nationwide by securing information, resources and tools for biologists as well as connecting the USFWS’ conservation mission with the power of art and literature as communication tools. She is an avid photographer; she is currently an organizer of the Friends of Rachel Carson NWR’s Sense of Wonder Art Contest, an event in celebration of the Refuge’s 50th anniversary in 2020.
This blog is part of a series celebrating 50 years of conservation at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge by reflecting on the legacy of the famed conservationist.
