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Pineywoods Summer Haiku; poems & photographs
© Judith Lauter 2014 20 haiku + 1 haiku-stanza poem, each paired with a JL color photo 63 pp, 8.5" x 8.5" publisher: Xlibris, 2014 ebook & softcover formats order from Xlibris (softcover or ebook) also available at stores in E. Texas (see listing on Home Page) ***Copies of selected photographs from this book can be purchased at FineArtAmerica.com, as greeting cards, prints, phone covers, etc.*** ***** Excerpts below include: Preface; Table of Contents; sample pages |
PREFACE
A sign on one of the walking trails at the Pineywoods Native Plant Center at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches notes that the pineywoods of East Texas is a unique meeting place of five distinct bio-ecological region types. The five are: prairies, deserts, tropics, swamps, and forests. This hybrid nature is expressed in soils, topography, plants, animals, and even the weather. For example, the pineywoods' vegetation combines prairie grasses with desert yucca and prickly-pear cactus; tropical palmetto palms; swamp-friendly bald cypress; and forests of oak, hickory, black and sweet gum, mixed in with a variety of pines.
When my husband and I moved to Nacogdoches in 2001, neither of us had ever been to Deep-East Texas. Though I was born in Austin, my family restricted their in-state travels to the Hill Country and the Gulf Coast, and never took me behind the 'Pine Curtain,' a north/south line where the pines begin, roughly 96 degrees W longitude (e.g., the western border of Houston County, where Crockett is the county seat). The pineywoods mix of geographies and biological topographies was a revelation to us, and is certainly unlike any other part of Texas. (For a map showing how the pineywoods are related to other bio-geographical regions within the state, see the one entitled "Vegetation Areas of Texas" at TexasAlmanac.com.)
Of the five ecological types in the pineywoods, Ken and I had not lived in the tropics or swamps, but we were very familiar with the other three after our many years living in prairies (Oklahoma and eastern Colorado), deserts (Arizona), and forests (evergreens of the mountains of New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona; mixed hardwoods of Michigan and Missouri). In East Texas, we found their pineywoods' incarnation truly amazing, and after more than a decade here, we are still discovering its wonders and unique charm.
-- JLL, Nacogdoches TX, August 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Morning
First Light
Forest Walk
New Leaves
Hubbub among the Branches
Squirrel at the Birdbath
Crepe Myrtle Dancers Can't Decide
Midday
Holdouts (Prairies)
Yucca Dreams (Deserts)
Palmetto Calypso (Tropics)
Angelina Wetlands (Swamps)
Canopy (Forests)
Afternoon
Before the Game
Imminent Onset
Storm Barely Gone
View from a Wet Shore
Pond after Rain
Evening
Evening Spectral Shift
Casual Flocks of Clouds
Sunset Pond
Consummation
Epilogue
Thirteen Ways of Listening to a Mockingbird
SAMPLE PAGES
A sign on one of the walking trails at the Pineywoods Native Plant Center at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches notes that the pineywoods of East Texas is a unique meeting place of five distinct bio-ecological region types. The five are: prairies, deserts, tropics, swamps, and forests. This hybrid nature is expressed in soils, topography, plants, animals, and even the weather. For example, the pineywoods' vegetation combines prairie grasses with desert yucca and prickly-pear cactus; tropical palmetto palms; swamp-friendly bald cypress; and forests of oak, hickory, black and sweet gum, mixed in with a variety of pines.
When my husband and I moved to Nacogdoches in 2001, neither of us had ever been to Deep-East Texas. Though I was born in Austin, my family restricted their in-state travels to the Hill Country and the Gulf Coast, and never took me behind the 'Pine Curtain,' a north/south line where the pines begin, roughly 96 degrees W longitude (e.g., the western border of Houston County, where Crockett is the county seat). The pineywoods mix of geographies and biological topographies was a revelation to us, and is certainly unlike any other part of Texas. (For a map showing how the pineywoods are related to other bio-geographical regions within the state, see the one entitled "Vegetation Areas of Texas" at TexasAlmanac.com.)
Of the five ecological types in the pineywoods, Ken and I had not lived in the tropics or swamps, but we were very familiar with the other three after our many years living in prairies (Oklahoma and eastern Colorado), deserts (Arizona), and forests (evergreens of the mountains of New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona; mixed hardwoods of Michigan and Missouri). In East Texas, we found their pineywoods' incarnation truly amazing, and after more than a decade here, we are still discovering its wonders and unique charm.
-- JLL, Nacogdoches TX, August 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Morning
First Light
Forest Walk
New Leaves
Hubbub among the Branches
Squirrel at the Birdbath
Crepe Myrtle Dancers Can't Decide
Midday
Holdouts (Prairies)
Yucca Dreams (Deserts)
Palmetto Calypso (Tropics)
Angelina Wetlands (Swamps)
Canopy (Forests)
Afternoon
Before the Game
Imminent Onset
Storm Barely Gone
View from a Wet Shore
Pond after Rain
Evening
Evening Spectral Shift
Casual Flocks of Clouds
Sunset Pond
Consummation
Epilogue
Thirteen Ways of Listening to a Mockingbird
SAMPLE PAGES
Copyright © 2023 Judith L. Lauter
