Poems by Carroll Grossman

America’s Ecosystem

The wildlife and its habitat cannot speak, so we must and we will.
Theodore Roosevelt

by Carroll Grossman

From Canary Fall 2019

Carroll lives most of the year near Bear Grass Creek, where she runs along the stream to Cherokee Park. For the last 20 years, she has spent a few weeks each winter in South Texas near the Rio Grande, where mesquite grows and road runners lead her along paths beside huisache trees in bloom.

Here we are on a partly sunny January afternoon at Santa Ana Federal Animal Refuge in South Texas near the Rio Grande along with those one expects to show up at a rally to save a great natural and national resource: The Audubon Society, counting, photographing and researching; the Sierra Club, flexing its political muscle that succeeds from time to time in preventing protections for the environment from being lost; and politicians who support our cause and who also hope to enjoy coverage to win another election. Representatives from many states are here as well as documented and undocumented friends from south of the border. The rest of us, hundreds in number, want to do our part in saving a fragile ecosystem that cannot be recovered once lost.

Santa Ana provides a corridor for migrating birds and mammals, and it gives access to people young and old to observe native and migrating animals in their habitat. Life in the refuge offers an ongoing education for all who enter here. Languages color the landscape: Spanish, English and bird. The mix of languages pleases me.

Santa Ana has been a favorite natural area for my husband and me to visit for hiking, biking and canoeing for ten or more years of visiting South Texas.

* * *

Eight years ago, I stumbled as I strained to carry my half of a two-person canoe. A fleet of canoes and a van full of park visitors had been delivered over narrow, rough roads that served fields of cabbage, cauliflower and cilantro to a place of portage near an old barn. As we stepped down from the vehicle, women exchanged knowing glances and hurried behind the barn to relieve ourselves before embarking on a four-hour journey on the Rio Grande.

I stumbled as I hurried, carrying a bottle of water and an apple in one hand and in the other, the aforesaid canoe. I stumbled, but I didn’t tumble down the steep bank. A ranger held the canoe steady as Harland stepped like a long-legged Great Blue into the canoe and settled himself into the driver’s seat. He held the canoe steady as I clambered aboard and inched forward to sit front, my oar at the ready.

Little did we know that we were entering a theatre of the world’s most creatively choreographed and directed opera. The theatre is beyond beautiful. Our oars rippled through soft, green waters while overhanging tree branches and blue sky provided light and set. We were bound by huisache trees showing off delicate yellow blossoms. The aria began with the calls of birds hidden in branches of trees low over the water. I identified a cardinal, a mockingbird and three green jays. Great blue herons stood in shallow water near the shore, their legs bent for take-off as a great kiscadee flashed his yellow markings and black headband just above the heron. Two kingfishers flew in from stage left to join the spectacle.

Cormorants dived for fish, tails up like fans out of the water. Love stories unfolded as we drifted. We drifted as we listened to raucous choruses sung by hidden Altamira orioles and scarlet birds whose names I did not know.

We remained dazzled as we returned to climb out of the rented canoe and crawl back up the bank. I didn’t climb as gracefully as the birds flew; however, my spirit felt light and at peace.

Once back at the park, we followed signs of javelina and heard about resident jaguarondi and ocelots. I ran behind a roadrunner with its ruffled look and skinny legs like those of a distance runner too old to run but too late to forego a lifetime pleasure. I loved them.

* * *

These are memories. Homeland Security forbade the canoe trips five or six years ago, saying that we need to protect the U.S. border from friends, family and workers who live across the Rio Grande. The government plan is to build a wall right down the middle of the preserve, interrupting the migratory paths of endangered plants, birds and mammals. As climate change accelerates, wildlife will have to travel further afield for food and water. The wall separating refuges on either side of the Rio Grande may be all it takes to destroy fragile species. A border wall will affect residents of Santa Ana, all of South Texas and, in time, will impact all the citizens of the United States and Mexico.

Theodore Roosevelt, more than one hundred years ago, understood the benefit to all of preserving great expanses of land for future generations to enjoy. We don’t realize that the need to protect wild places of natural beauty is now. The losses are not recoverable.

* * *

So here we are. We protest the wall, we sing, take photographs, and wear t-shirts that proclaim our resistance to the border wall and our support for Dreamers. A young man steps up onto a temporary stage to tell his story. He was born in the United States, attended college here and holds a job in computer science. Twenty-five years ago his parents entered the U.S. illegally. They found work and raised their children in the Rio Grande Valley. Now one of these children, who was born and has lived his whole life in the United States, is threatened with deportation. He’s educated, he’s productive and he pays taxes.

College students who only want to remain to be allowed to finish their college education speak. We cry in response and ask each other, “Are we inhumane and stupid?”

We move from the tent to tables where information is distributed and petitions signed. We sign them all, then walk to the bird blind inside the refuge where we observe the beauty of the birds as they come and go collecting seeds at all the feeders. They take a few seeds, then fly to a nearby bush or tree, their protection from predators. I watch them with sadness and yearning, as I might grown children getting ready to leave home to engage in foreign combat, little knowing when or whether they will return.

A bulldozer is like a bomb that wipes out all the life in its path.