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I'd like to read some poems that
come from an art and science

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collaboration that I've
been part of, again,

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out of Oregon State University.

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Some of you know about
this project at the Andrews

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Experimental Forest.

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Philosopher Kathleen
Dean Moore has

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worked with the
Earth scientist Fred

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Swanson there to
create a project that

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works in partnership with their
long-term ecological research

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project, which is a
National Science Foundation

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project looking at
ecosystem issues.

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They helped to develop
the Northwest Forest

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Plan for a more sustainable
way to manage the Northwest

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forests, to protect the
northern spotted owl.

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Kathleen Moore had the
idea that in addition

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to scientific research,
they wanted to have

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a project called Reflections.

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So they now have long-term
ecological reflections,

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in which they bring artists
and writers into the forest--

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and philosophers-- to
go to the same sites

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where scientists are doing
their research, and sample

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from those places, and
produce their own work.

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So I've been there--

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I don't know, two
or three times now.

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And as a series of
poems in this book

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there are also a
couple of essays

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that came out of those visits.

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The great thing
about this project

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is that the artists
and writers are not

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being brought in to simply
illustrate the science,

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like oh could you give us
something catchy to get

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the science across to people.

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But the artists are being
brought in as partners,

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to stand in the same
site, and to describe

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in our own vocabulary
informs what we're seeing.

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The time horizon for the
project is 200 years.

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So for 200 years,
writers are going

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to be brought into this place.

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They're going to produce
whatever they produce.

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It's going to become part
of an archive that then will

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be examined and evaluated
from time to time

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and finally somebody
200 years from now

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will make sense of it all.

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Why 200 years?

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Because that is how
long the time horizon is

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for one of their
classic studies,

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the log decomposition study.

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Where they have these
200-year-old Douglas firs.

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It takes them 200 years to
decay down until they're soil.

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So Reflections is riding the
same time train, so to speak.

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So I'd like to read a few of
the poems that came from my time

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at the Andrews.

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This first one you'll
hear-- it's a short one--

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you'll hear in it what
happens when we go

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and we hear the specialized
diction that scientists use.

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And it has all these
wonderful musical properties.

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"Forest Time."

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Forest Road 1510 rises up
the flank of Buck Mountain

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into the zone of mist.

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Road canted like a shelf
fungus, though no roots hold it

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in place.

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Mountain works at
softening its sides.

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Wind throw, cut slope slide,
hill slope slide, slump, gully,

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and Earth flow its tools.

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Work day, 10 million years long.

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