Poetry in Ruins

Blueberry Hill, a Radar Base, and a Quarry Turned Wetland

Between a quarry and a radar installation likes Blueberry Hill, one of the highest elevations in southern New Jersey. On the intracoastal plain where the Appalachian plateau has been ground down to sugar sand, where Atlantic Cedars and dwarf pines eke out an existence from the acidic soil and iron-stained waters, Walt Whitman found inspiration for Leaves of Grass at a place called Crystal Spring; now it’s a sliver of creek between suburban developments. But there’s poetry in the ruins, if you go looking. Sometimes that poetry isn’t a metaphor, like this sheet of posterboard someone glued to an abandoned piece of construction material, on which they drew an Escher-esque pattern and wrote a poetic lament. I’ve transcribed it below.

You can see Philadelphia from the top of Blueberry Hill, but that’s not the thrill that the local teenagers come for. If the poem seems a little dramatic, it’s posted in an area where the kids go to smoke weed. It’s legal for adults, but they scarpered when they saw this old man hiking.

Two ravens also live in the area. I thought I heard a “gronk!” and saw them, and a Peregrine falcon, circling the apocalyptic landscape of the quarry. It’s a good birding area, with the radar installation as a high point for raptors and vultures to perch, the wetlands and forest for the prey to hide. I saw my first Eastern Bluebird here; this time I saw none, but a Brown Thrasher sang to me from the trees. The ravens were scarce, and I thought I’d mistaken them until I met a birder with her grandson at the Community Garden nearby, which is festooned with bird houses. The young boy was photographing little songbirds with an old camera of grandma’s; she, the veteran birder, had a camera with a 1200mm zoom lens hanging from her neck, and told me that the male raven was named Edgar, and the garden keeper fed him Vienna sausages. I’ll have to return more often, to catch a glimpse.

The FAA Radar Base is managed by the Air Force, but in a relaxed enough fashion that a beekeeper has a hive guarded by a skeleton on the grounds. The community garden is nearby. The quarry is technically off-limits and still in use, by TRI Borough Sand & Stone, but it’s easy to wander into. One section had Mallards, Tree Swallows, and Canada Geese visiting. There are parts where you’d forget that it’s a quarry.

The Community Garden is lively, and two groups were tailgating in the parking lot. It’s also known as Pole Hill. There are hiking paths throughout Blueberry Hill, paved paths used by dog walkers and cyclists, and several geocaches in the area. It’s a nice place, but reminds me of how many preserves we have only because of infrastructure. Sewer and gas lines run through Black Run Preserve; the Pinelands are free of that, and lack even cell phone towers. Even though the trees in the Pinelands Preserve are recent growth that was replanted after nearly all of it was cut down to feed the need for shipbuilding material, charcoal, and fuel for bog iron furnaces, preservation since the ‘70s makes it feel like a more wild place.

This kind of fits in with the urban landscapes explored by

Christopher Brown

in his Field Notes newsletter, so you can read more there if you’re interested in this subject. While this quarry isn’t quite as striking as the prickly pear cacti at the ruins of Aero Haven it paints a picture of how we can rewild and let nature reclaim land we’ve purposed for obsolete projects. It won’t always be pristine, but it doesn’t have to be. I believe in “Leave No Trace” when visiting preserves and parks, but we can’t expect humanity to leave none at all, everywhere. Beavers, termites, woodpeckers… they all leave a trace.

We are part of nature; we need to make our traces easier for nature to heal, so we don’t leave a litany of scars upon the Earth.

The poem:

Superposition & Rapunzel

I must admit the most dire mistake

Was I just deluded for loving you?

That lie, a Fever that broke at daybreak

My swayed position what are you to do?

No not this, although many have accrued

Many times I could have listened much more

I heard your voice and knew what to construe

As it wavered in startled fear, your wars

That friend is why I called you my Comrade

It's Tough as to which is my gravest sin

Who puts their weight on a friend in combat

I gave you a hand that could never win

What a mess; this is not how I visioned

Leaving a love in Superposition

—author unknown