A tribute to Ruth Patrick

Ruth Patrick, 105, a Pioneer in Science And Pollution Control Efforts, Is Dead

By WILLIAM DICKE

Dr. Patrick, one of the country's leading experts in the study of freshwater ecosystems, or limnology, was an innovator of a number of environmental practices and principles

Even as the drips of rain splatter,

Taking me yet again to a land,lost and gone,

Alive in my mind, ever so briefly,

Drops splatter there on fallen leaves,

   Coconut trees sway, shower the ground,

   As the wind spy on another humid morning,

   Drops fall and clink on a stained jack-fruit leaf,

   I lie there,watch the jack fruits, marvel and dream...

   Open doors, open air and quiet days,

   A childhood stored in memories...

Yet it comes un-announced,

Sweetness of  water on a hot , dusty day,

Mangoes falling with the rain storm,

Dropped in their juicy ripeness,

Sweetness on my tongue, the pureness of joy,

Un-hurried life, now gone.

   Thus I pray, nature take over please...

   Even at the morning walk, scrape the rubber soles,

   Forgotten , the milky sap and all before,

   All felled trees , dead to grow soured sap

Missed  giants, some forgotten in moments

Be it an enampechi,or leech, 

Be that the Panal bush or the mud-swinmmer fish

Long gone before the scientific giants, 

Some  who braved before the masses

Liberals,Like grand mother, 

Like science  freind to child through news snippets...

Enough to inspire, no-less..

PS... the river flows now barely, fully blocked up by debris . The water , nor the ground can reclaim its purer state again, in the new rubber  growing era. I had been read to about some enviormentalist lady who worked with river water, which added to my fantasy of my friend the river.