About ten years ago, I had my only visit to Heron Pond in Shawnee National Forest and experiencing the wonder of a cypress wetland in Illinois. Some long-time followers might remember a Friday Foto of a Water Moccasin covered in the duckweed of the swamp. I hoped for fall colors in a visit last week, and was blessed with a magic morning.
I started the hike in the dark with a lamp on my head, and wasn’t sure I was on the right trail because my memory did not hold the river I was walking along.
Early light on the Cache River
Soon enough, however, cypress trees were showing in the soft morning light.
Cypress dawn
The trail eventually leads to a boardwalk that heads out into the pond. The sun was getting above the tree line and glowing through the morning mist.
Mary Oliver sets many of her poems on ponds, so let’s start with the beginning of At Great Pond:
At Great Pond
the sun, rising,
scrapes his orange breast
on the thick pines,
and down tumble
a few orange feathers into
the dark water.
. . . .
Seems that Great Pond was a favorite place for Oliver. Morning at Great Pond was in her 1983 Pulitzer Prize winning book American Primitive:
It starts like this:
forks of light
slicking up
out of the east,
flying over you,
and what's left of night --
its black waterfalls,
its craven doubt --
dissolves like gravel
as the sun appears
. . . .
From Heron Rises From The Dark, Summer Pond
. . . .
And she turns
From the thick water,
From the black sticks
Of the summer pond,
And slowly
Rises into the air
And is gone.
Then, not for the first or the last time,
I take the deep breath
Of happiness, and I think
How unlikely it is
That death is a hole in the ground,
How improbable
That ascension is not possible,
. . . .
The trail continues on past the pond boardwalk, and shortly after comes to the state champion cherrybark oak. A champion tree is one recognized as the largest of its species in a state. Eleven state champions are in the Heron Pond-Cache River State Natural Area. To help show the size of this wonder, Chance and I got in the image.
Illinois Champion Cherrybark Oak
From there, the Little Black Slough trail invites you to continue along the Cache River.
What awaits on the Little Black Slough trail