Ravens like this one inspire people to respond to their calls, and sometimes to pick up a pencil. (Courtesy Photo / Ned Rozell)

Alaska Science Forum: Butterflies and ravens as poetic inspiration

Both poets and scientists are deep observers who interpret the world in different ways.

Stories about ravens and chickadees and wolves result in more responses in my inbox than others. The past few weeks — after one story about winter butterflies and another about raven talk — have been predictable in that way, but unpredictable in another.

Two writers have sent me poems about those creatures. I read the poems without distraction. They made me think about how both poets and scientists are deep observers who interpret the world in different ways.

“Genus Nymphalis,” by Eric Heyne, UAF English professor:

“Don’t step on it!” my daughter warned

as we lugged in the grocery bags

from the garage. It looked like a leaf,

orange and brown, ragged-edge wings.

She brought it in for her “collection,”

until it moved, morphed into a pet.

Ignorant of the secret life of butterflies,

I had no idea they survived the cold

in Fairbanks; this winter-wakened

Compton Tortoiseshell (we googled it)

was as big a surprise as a yeti would have been.

It lapped up orange juice from my daughter’s

hand, flew around her room and returned

to that outstretched palm, emerging by day

and going back into the butterfly house

by night. A domesticated insect!

Even knowing the end was near did not

prevent the tears a few days later — not hers

but mine, ashamed to weep for a bug.

(from “Fish the Dead Water Hard,” published by Cirque Press)

* * *

“Voices of Ravens,” by Frank Keim, retired Alaska Bush schoolteacher

Marshall, Alaska, December 1990

“Did you know that Ravens coo?

Well, they do, and they cackle too,”

I heard myself whisper, smiling,

as I straddled the trail with my skis,

arms akimbo on metal poles,

searching up through the broken nebula

of naked branches and blue dusk

for their confraternity of cackling voices,

muffled by wind soughing

in tall cottonwoods

and hard snow pelting wrinkled bark

and

my own furrowed face every now and then.

I was returning from the village spring

where I filled my bottles with sweetwater

and took a few moments

to just listen to these rowdy nighttime friends

and their raucous togetherness,

sounding now like

a jeering mob, or

the panic of a henhouse,

then

as the purr of kittens

or cooing of doves,

and

suddenly,

like solemn black staring silence itself.

• Since the late 1970s, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute has provided this column free in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell ned.rozell@alaska.edu is a science writer for the Geophysical Institute.

A Compton tortoiseshell butterfly emerges from winter hibernation with a suddenness that often surprises people who thought the insect was dead. (Courtesy Photo / Ned Rozell)

A Compton tortoiseshell butterfly emerges from winter hibernation with a suddenness that often surprises people who thought the insect was dead. (Courtesy Photo / Ned Rozell)

More in News

Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File
The Aurora Borealis glows over the Mendenhall Glacier in 2014.
Aurora Forecast

Forecasts from the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute for the week of March. 19

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)
Police calls for Tuesday, March 21, 2023

This report contains information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

This September 2015, photo provided by NOAA Fisheries shows an aerial view of adult female Southern Resident killer whale (J16) swimming with her calf (J50). New research suggests that inbreeding may be a key reason that the Pacific Northwest’s endangered population of killer whales has failed to recover despite decades of conservation efforts. The so-called “southern resident” population of orcas stands at 73 whales. That’s just two more than in 1971, after scores of the whales were captured for display in marine theme parks around the world. (NOAA Fisheries / Vancouver Aquarium)
The big problem for endangered orcas? Inbreeding

Southern resident killer whales haven’t regularly interbred with other populations in 30 generations.

Juneau Brass Quintet co-founding member Bill Paulick along with Stephen Young performs “Shepherd’s Hey” to a packed house at the Alaska State Museum on Saturday as part of the quintet’s season-ending performance. Friends of the Alaska State Library, Archives and Museum sponsored the event with proceeds going to the musicians and FoSLAM. (Jonson Kuhn / Juneau Empire)
Top brass turns out for event at State Museum

Free performance puts a capt on a busy season.

Alaska’s state legislators are slated to get the equivalent of 6,720 additional $5 bills in their salary next year via a $33,600 raise to a total of $84,000 due to a veto Monday by Gov. Mike Dunleavy of bill rejecting raises for legislative and executive branch employees. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)
Veto negates rejection of pay hikes for governor, legislators

Dunleavy clears way for 67% hike in legislative pay, 20% in his to take effect in coming months

On Thursday, the Alaska State Board of Education approved a resolution that supports barring transgender female students from participating in girls’ sports. (Getty Images illustration via Alaska Beacon)
State school board supports barring transgender female students from participating in girls’ sports

On Thursday, the Alaska State Board of Education approved a resolution that… Continue reading

Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire 
State Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, asks Randy Bates, director of the Division of Water for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, about state water quality regulations some fish hatcheries are calling harmful during a Senate Finance Committee meeting Friday. The meeting was to review the DEC’s proposal to take over responsibility for many federal Clean Water Act permits, claiming it will be more responsible and efficient for development projects. Some of the senators questioned both the cost of the state taking over a process currently funded by the federal government, as well as the state’s ability to properly due to the job within the guidelines for such a takeover.
Wading into rule change proposals affecting clean water

National PFAS limits, state takeover of wetlands permits raise doubts about who should take charge

Guy Archibald collects clam shell specimens on Admiralty Island. Archibald was the lead author of a recently released study that linked a dramatic increase of lead levels in Hawk Inlet’s marine ecosystem and land surrounding it on Admiralty Island to tailings released from the nearby Hecla Greens Creek Mine. (Courtesy Photo / John Neary)
New study links mine to elevated lead levels in Hawk Inlet

Hecla Greens Creek Mine official ardently refutes the report’s findings.

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)
Police calls for Saturday, March 18, 2023

This report contains information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

Most Read