Over the years, we at the Cibolo Center for Conservation have found that promoting conservation involves touching hearts as well as providing information.
Experiences in or about nature can create a sense of wonder that fosters curiosity, and an appetite for information can emerge. Visiting a nature center can do it. Literature can do it. Art can do it. And poetry can do it.
Herff Farm is full of magic, and often many of us do not have the opportunity to experience every ounce of that wonder at all times of the day.
We are excited to offer a way to enjoy all that beauty with a group of friends. In partnership with the Cibolo Conservancy Land Trust, we are hosting a Songs & Stories series to inform and entertain residents of the Hill Country.
While the Cibolo Conservancy’s goal is to conserve and protect the lands in the Hill Country through conservation easements, the Cibolo Center for Conservation also wants to educate future generations and steward our region’s precious natural resources. We seek to do this through engagement with the growing Boerne community.
We could not think of a better way to do it than with a night of poetry. On Saturday, Sept. 17, attendees at the Herff Farm will hear words from three prominent writers in our region: Naomi Shihab Nye, Lucy Griffith and Suzanne Ohlmann.
After all, Boerne was named after a well-known writer – Ludwig von Börne, born in 1786, an Orthodox Jew in the degrading neighborhoods of Frankfurt, Germany. He changed his name, traveled to Paris in 1830 and remained there until he died in 1837.
His writings criticized the oppressive political order of the time, supported popular freedom movements and were widely read among the German Freethinkers who founded his namesake “Boerne.”
Ludwig von Börne wrote, “Nothing is permanent but change, nothing is constant but death. Every pulsation of the heart inflicts a wound, and life would be an endless bleeding were it not for poetry. She secures to us what nature would deny; a golden age without rust, a spring which never fades, cloudless prosperity, and eternal youth.”
Of course, our daily issues may differ from his, but the need for clear voices remains the same. As our region is rapidly changing, the growing pains call for sensitive solutions and compassion for each other.
Our poets for the evening include Naomi Shihab Nye, a longtime friend of the Cibolo Nature Center and the Patrick Heath Public Library, Brent's Rocketship and Boerne local schools. On faculty at Texas State University, she has written or edited about 35 books and contributed to hundreds. Naomi and her husband, documentarian Michael Nye, live in downtown San Antonio.
Happiest on a tractor named Mabel, Lucy Griffith lives on a ranch beside the Guadalupe River near Comfort. As a retired psychologist and rancher, she explored the imagined life of the Burro Lady of Far West Texas in her debut poetry book. “We Make a Tiny Herd” was published by Main Street Rag as a finalist in their poetry book contest and has won the Wrangler Prize for Poetry and the Willa Literary Award for Poetry. Lucy received the Returning Contributor Bread Loaf scholarship in Poetry. “Wingbeat Atlas,” poems, and images of our citizens of the sky, have just been released by FlowerSong Press.
We will also feature Suzanne Ohlmann, a writer, and registered nurse. Her first book, “Shadow Migration,” came out on March 1, 2022. Her essays have been published by Texas Monthly, Intima: The Journal of Narrative Medicine, and Longreads. She lives in San Antonio with her husband, son and an assortment of rescued pets.
The evening will be full of encouragement for us all to do what we can to conserve the natural wonder of the Hill Country, “the sweet spot of Texas.” Books will be available for signing, and the stars will wink at us.
Grab your lawn chairs, coolers and a picnic, and head to the Will Smith Amphitheater at Herff Farm for poetry and fun at the community’s historic farm! Ticket prices are available for members and non-members and students.
The event starts at 8 p.m., and the gates will open at 7:30 pm. Proceeds from the event benefit land conservation efforts. Tickets are available on the conservancy’s website at www.ciboloconservanc.org or the Cibolo Center for Conservation at www.cibolo.org.
Comment
Comments