Every year since his death, I find myself very teary around the time of his passing. I still want to call him and ask him questions that my students ask and I can't answer. I still long for that trip into the "real world," and I still look through my field notebook from my Field Biology of the Southern Appalachians trip. The last time I saw him, I told him that I had been looking through it, and he laughed and told me it was "dangerous." Miss you, G. Love and prayers to your family.
I don't know when he wrote this, but I love it.
LAMENT OF A FIELD BIOLOGIST
My former choice collecting spots
Are shopping center parking lots.
The meadow, once abuzz with bee
Is still now, thanks to DDT.
Shades of Rachel Carson,
Whatever will become of me
The glen where trilliums lolled in shade
And toadlets hopped, and chipmunks played,
In a watery grave has lain for years
Drowned by the Corps of Engineers.
My wild world is sinking fast,
Whatever will become of me
The marsh, a haunt of coots and rails,
Where Typha waved and wagged its tails,
Succumbed to an ignominious fate,
It's a cloverleaf on the interstate.
Nature heaves a dying breath,
Whatever will become of me
Clear birch‑edged stream with fauna rank,
With iris blue upon your bank,
Your poisoned pools I now scan,
My seine haul yields one Falstaff can.
Everything I love is gone,
Whatever will become of me
The fields are being, with great precision
Transformed into a subdivision,
The eagle falls, the lily dies,
And on the road a 'possum lies.
No doubt what will become of me,
Molecular Biology.
GEORGE W. FOLKERTS
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