Song of Wekiva
Florida’s Wild River and its Democratic
Vista
by Steve Phelan
Professor of English Emeritus, Rollins College
Introduction:
How to Navigate This River Book [Using
the color code.]
Preface [A note on my
optimism in this book with acknowledgements of all who have helped along the Wekiva.]
Wekiva: a Non-stop Flight [The state bird opens our story of Florida,
out of the sea’s cradle endlessly mocking. 3pp]
Old Sea – New Land [Florida’s unique geological history. 2pp]
The Heart of
Lightness: Settlers in the Swampshine State [A short history of Florida and the Wekiva’s place in its growth management. 6pp]
A
View from the Swallow-tailed Kite [The river and its five runs with an explanation of the many
directions and dimensions we will explore. 6pp]
Chapter I
Rock Springs Run: Taking Biochemistry to Heart
Rock Springs Run [A kayaking overview of Run I. 3pp]
Kelly Park, 1927 [How the
preservation and protection of the Wekiva basin began
with the bequest of an extraordinary doctor and naturalist from Baltimore
A Member of the Wetting [A bright day for swimmers and tubers in Kelly Park
proves full of surprises. 4pp]
Osmosis [Thinking of our selves as
water opens us to the peacefulness of the dynamic flow in our human world. Prosepoem, 2pp]
The Suite of Feathers and
Wings [A bird in the flats flies up
to a new perch, a slow motion prose poem about the pas de deux
of life and death in the basin. 2pp]
Camp Cozy [Stopping by the ford where the Apopka Sportsmen once had
a cabin to celebrate their annual feasts and hunts. 2pp]
Emergent Properties [How biologists describe the wondrous stages of
development in life’s evolving story.
3pp]
A New Breed
[On
a fishing jaunt, we enter the world of bass and bream, discovering the warmouth
and other evolutions of ourselves. 3pp]
The Discovery of Wekiva [What is the value in discovering already inhabited lands
as compared to finding the living powers of the cell? 3pp]
Boyz in the Muck [Memories of gator hunting as a boy. 3pp]
The River of Blood [What does it take to save Wekiva?
At the Blood Donation Center we can get some ideas. 2pp]
Interlude I: The Species
Self: Walt Whitman [Whitman’s
“Song of Myself” speaks from and establishes our magnanimal
nature. 5pp]
Chapter II
Wekiwa Springs and the Upper River: Land Use and
Private Property
Wekiwa Springs,
the Upper River [An overview of Run II. 3pp]
The Shape of Wekiwa [Poem in the shape of the Wekiwa
Springs’ pools. 4pp]
Wekiwa
Springs State Park, 1969 [The
purchase of the 6000 acres from the Apopka Sportmens
Club followed by the sale of the 200 acres surrounding the spring marked the
central acquisition in the long history of preservation in the
Ibi [The Timucuan natives and their
contemporary counterparts celebrate the crystal waters of the spring. 3pp]
ATC [A day at the Adolescent
Treatment Center, trying to explain the importance of the Wekiva
in advance of a field trip. 6pp.]
The Scene
beyond the Seen [Let’s go
for a swim at the springs and see what Buddha Thor has to say. 4pp]
Tomokan
Waterworld
[Taking
students to the springs, I always conjure up the natives who no doubt enjoyed
this swimming hole as much as we still do.
3pp]
River Traffic or Notes from
the Otterground [River traffic is disrupted by thousands of snags above
and below the surface. How do gators and otters cope? 5pp]
Shell Island [The
history of
The Duke of Wekiva: An Essay on Private Property
Interlude II: Whitman’s
Democratic Vistas [Whitman’s legacy for the community of the
land. 7pp]
Chapter III
The Little Wekiva River: Politics and Activism
The Little Wekiva, the Friends [An overview of Run III. 3pp]
Rosemont [How developers and homeowner’s
associations have adapted to the river community, a “Song of the Broad Axe.” 3pp]
Eelgrass Roots [The Little Wekiva on a day for
the cleanup. 4pp]
Hidden
Cypress Acres: A Dramatic Monologue [A reenactment of Russ Fisher giving a talk on the early
history of the Friends of the Wekiva River. 10pp]
“I Caught a Turtle,
Ev’rybody”
[FOWR visits The Springs, a gated community, to see if
the site has suffered at the hands of the homeowners association and many are
brought back to their memories of youth, a cave of fantasy with a spring of
pleasures past. 7pp]
Wekiva: a Democratic Vista [How language is a special kind of animal navigation for
building community in the river basin. 2pp]
Mary McKey [On Wekiva River Awareness Day
I get to paddle along with our resident Wekiva
photographer, a day when wishes come true.
5pp]
Twin Mounds [A trip with my honors class to the Timucuan
site in Rock Springs Run State Reserve makes us feel like a small unit of the
osprey clan. 4pp]
The Year of the Wekiva:
1988 [The governor spends a day on
the river with Eddie Williford and the FOWR. A
transformation takes place and history is made. 7pp]
Eelgrass Roots: A Retrospective [What
are the secrets to success in a grass roots endeavor? 4pp]
Interlude
III: Whitman’s Environmental
Imagination [The poetry of nineteenth-century science: a
thesaurus of Whitman’s poetic ideas.
9pp]
Chapter IV
The Lower Wekiva: Wildlife and Spirit
The Lower Wekiva, the Preserve [An overview of Run IV. 3pp]
Where’s Momma? [Exploring the mudbed at the confluence of Blackwater
Creek with the Lower Wekiva. 3pp]
Lower Mammals on the
Backwaters [Three months
of record rainfalls open up new back channels in the lower basin. 4pp]
Blessed Are the Meek [A meditation on the phrase “inherit the earth” in the
context of the river’s beatitudes. 4pp]
Barred Owl Elegy [An uncommon experience of owls by daylight. 4pp]
Scales [A hike in the Lower Wekiva
River State Preserve reveals the importance of scale in our observations of
nature and humankind. 4pp]
The Dommerichs
and the Blackmans [Pioneer developers envisioned and created a full-bodied
community in central Florida with all the essential elements of agriculture,
cattle, banking, railroad and steamboat transportation, education from K to
college, church affiliation, libraries, and a strong family network. In addition, these two couples were also
charter members of the Florida Audubon Society. 6pp]
Katie’s Landing [A poem is a paddle. This chain
of kayak verses presents a gallery of wildlife Bill and I found along on the way
to Chub Slough and back. 11pp]
Muckwalking
[Leaving the kayaks, we hike up a sulphurous creek into the sedge. 4pp]
Limpkins and Turkeys Wild [An exploration
of the domains of quiet in the Lower Wekiva
introduces us to the gobbler and the squawker.
6pp]
National Wild and
Scenic River: 2000 [National recognition comes to Wekiva,
one of only three wild rivers in the east to receive federal recognition and
support. 3pp]
Interlude
IV: Whitman’s Quaker Spirit [A share of Bartram’s ecology somehow came
to Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. 9pp]
Chapter V
Seminole
Forest and the Blackwater Creek: The Promise of
Restoration
Blackwater Creek and the Seminole
State Forest
[An overview of
Run V. 3pp]
The
Chemistry of the Golden Silk [We weave our way through spider paths and come upon a
place of restoration. 4pp]
Bald Cypress [The logging of the cypress trees in the
Maple River Syrup [Theseus cannot have entered Athens more triumphantly
than our return from a trip to Seminole Creek.
4pp]
Sulphur
Run [Kayaking with Bill up the
shallow, snag-strewn stream that enters Blackwater
Creek, we do some hiking back in the swamp, looking for the outflow of Shark’s
Tooth Spring. 5pp]
Building in the
Basin [How the muck flows
down-and-around-stream on the Blackwater Creek. 4pp]
The
Noiseless Patient Hitchhiker [Why do mosquitoes have to bite? What good are they? The Blackwater after the three great hurricanes is a lesson in
insect ecology. 5pp]
Cypress Dome: A Natural History of History [Moran’s painting of Ponce de Leon
in Florida evokes a reevaluation of historical versus biological time and
colors a visit to fort San Marcos in St. Augustine. A return to native Florida
at the time of contact. 9pp]
Where the Bears
and the Timucuan Roam [Saving the best for last, this adventure with my friend
Jim reaches the spiritual center, the numinous caves, and the sacred totem of
all my Wekiva adventures. 6pp]
Good News: Scrub Jays Making a
Comeback [A recent newsletter report shows how the promise of
restoration can be achieved. 3pp]
Envoy: [Like the river, this book really has no end; but here
are my conclusions. Where can the Wekiva go from
here? 4pp]
Appendix:
On the Dignity of Animal
Nature [William Bartram’s unpublished manuscript, courtesy
of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, is a rough draft of a larger essay
which I title “On the Virtues: Divine, Human, and Animal,” but embedded within
it is a smaller, more astounding treatise which I title: “On the Dignity of
Animal Nature.” A more definitive text
has recently been published in Hallock and
Hoffman. 9pp]
How Big Was
Bartram’s Ark? [Ruminations on
William Bartram’s place among American nature writers in view of his
unpublished ms on the Dignity of Animal Nature. 9pp]
Bibliography:
Whitman and Bartram
© 2010
Last Update:
2/11/2011
A
sample of earlier drafts and items no longer in the book:
9/25/98 Wekiva Aquarium (a comparison of the state park to
the Florida Aquarium)
7/26/99 Hospitalism (our hospital care
compared to our treatment of the earth)
9/19/99 Presence (an early, color version of Katie’s Landing)
9/30/99 Ave Gaia (a photo essay within a prayer—allow a little load
time)
1/25/00 Sculpture (a poem about restoration)
4/19/01 Sulphur Run Walk
(the upside down palm tree and other underworld encounters have us going in
circles on the Blackwater)