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explore biotic community
Explore the Haibun postcard project by Aidan Barger: a fusion of poetry and photographs capturing the essence of his visits to locations around the Palouse.
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You can find an interview with Aidan about his work on this project here: Haibun Postcards
From the Latah Trail, in the direction of Troy
The two-striped grasshopper waits while the wind gusts, and the crabapple tree whispers through its leaves. The clouds speed across the sky, and we perceive their movement in moist puddles surrounded by tall grasses. The wheat stalks, butting against the edge of the trail, dance to the south, maybe for rain. The grasshopper thwacks​ like two stones smacked together with each jump. Only the highway hums beyond.
thistles bursting sunshine
grasshopper scuttles, searching
into cool grass
October 16, 2020
From Wawawai County Park, Whitman County
As I open the door of my car, the beetle rushes by. It hobbles over the pebbles baked into the asphalt, speeding over the yellow parking line and retreating into the shade. On the hillside—brushing against the edges of the parking lot—sagebrush and sunflowers stand among faded yellow grasses under rolls of clouds. A strong breeze rustles the trees along the Snake River. They say you can hear the Lower Granite Dam hum, but the chirping crickets in the deep green swath of the park drown it out.
crickets chirp
a community underneath
Snake River
November 6, 2020
From the WSU Arboretum & Conservation Center, Pullman
The fly rests near the ragged, juicy plum skin, wind coursing over its iridescent thorax. Stripes of moss fill cracks on the wooden bench. Cattails slip from the moist edges of the pond while a constellation of yellow leaves sails across its surface. Even the trees wear moss, slurping the gray sprinkles of rain as they soak through the topsoil and descend. I imagine earthworms wriggling deep. A black spider crawls from one side of the path to the other. Hawk soars above.
pond’s surface
is creaking branches
worn glass wings
and sky
October 30, 2020
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From the railroad tracks near Reaney Park, Pullman
The sun sets on wrinkled rose hips. They bob beside the tracks approaching Grand Avenue while underneath a leafless tree floats a ghost of gnats, looping and circling like chips of quartz. Gossamer spiderwebs drift above the rails and catch the twilight like fire. Pine needles slowly reclaim this path, burying wood and steel. The Palouse River sweeps fallen leaves along as it whispers southwest from its origin in the Hoodoo Mountains to the Snake River.
white spider weaves a web
above clear water
as night overflows its banks
November 20, 2020
From Pullman City Cemetery
Sweeping across dirt, the cold breeze tugs at brown, waterlogged leaves. It rained yesterday. Small red berries, like bits of melon, glisten in the grass. Swinging up and down in a tree hollow, glossy spiderweb remains spiderless. Moss makes a home of each tombstone, green swaths of chlorophyll re-colonizing granite. Birdsong tangles with tree branches and their shadows as sun warms the dark soil of farmers’ fields outside cemetery gates.
wind seems to say:
witness this imperfect renewal,
this release of shared breath
December 11, 2020