How is this for good company within a delightfully sunny woodland? Kneeling in thought beside me as I focus my lens on our collective favorite brilliant harbingers of spring, the lovely trout lilly, are the aged-old naturalist John Burroughs and the delightful poet Mary Oliver. My mental companions would no doubt be loving every moment of this sun-blessed morning in the wooded hills of Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park just as I was as those tiny and delicate flowers reached preciously from the stem, hugging the white and yellow stamens.

Although I can’t recall the exact moment of a social media message that offered a much needed sprig of hope in these trying times, there is no uncertainty of the muse: “Now is the time to head to Nerstrand-Big Woods for the trout lillies and marsh marigolds!” read the message.

Both are wood-harbored wildflowers that offer as much hope and joy of spring as pasque flowers give us here in the grassy prairie. When I’m near such a shady ecosystem this time of year, both species are difficult to resist. Burroughs spoke of the possible reason behind the common name by pointing to the leaves he claimed seemed  “painted” like a flank of a freshly caught trout. Oliver? While her’s was the more easterly located yellow trout lilly, there is little doubt that seeing them here in the hills of Nerstrand would likewise have given her hope in these trying times as she painted so beautifully in her poem on trout lillies.

“All I know is,” she wrote upon seeing trout lillies in bloom, “there was a light that lingered, for hours,

under her eyelids – that made a difference

when she went back to a difficult house, at the end of the day.”

It was about this time a year ago when an overheard mention of trout lillies being in bloom near Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park caught my attention. We were about an hour north at a gallery where my canvases were hanging when naturalist and former State Senator Tedd Suss, whose spacious little farmstead lies just outside of the park, offered the information to a friend of his. Interestingly, earlier in the day we had walked the wooded path on the grounds of the Izaak Walton League’s gallery in search of various wild flowers including trout lillies.

Suss assured me there was a significant chance of photographing them so after our reception we added a couple of hours to our drive home to check out the park. Initially we were disappointed for no matter where we looked on the path downhill toward Hidden Falls there wasn’t a blossom to be seen. Then, on a set of wooden stairs created to perhaps ward off a nasty face plant on the rocky path, we met up with two women where pleasantries were exchanged. Within that my intent was spoken, and one of them said, “Oh, my. You’re much too late for those beautiful little lillies are long gone.”

Imagine my disappointment. Regardless, or perhaps in thoughts of dire protest, we continued our search into then knee-high growth along the pathway when suddenly Roberta asked, “Is this what you are looking for?” And, it was. Eventually we found about a half dozen hidden within the tall greenery in full maturity, and my sigh of recognition and relief perhaps fluttered those delicate white petals.

And, this time Mr. Suss was correct, for I had texted him before we left on the four hour, one-way drive. We were a week to ten days earlier this year, and yes, hundreds of them poked from the molted shade. In all stages, from pre-bloom to maturity. And yes, Burroughs’ description of the dappled leaves offered obvious evidence.

Among the lillies were other beauties of the woods including Jack-in-the-pulpits, wild blue phlox, hepatica, Dutchman’s breeches and those yellowish bellworts. We spied some trillium aching to blossom. Yet it was the trout lillies that drew me in. Delicate white petals hugged the stamens on the newly bloomed, their curtains widened with age. A slight breeze gave them the look of dancers offering a delicate ballet within the woodlands.

As we neared the Prairie Creek falls the dazzling yellows of marsh marigolds seemed to explode from the watery dampness. Seemingly acres of them, and all in mid-season form. With the harmonious sounds of the nearby falls one couldn’t ask for a more beautiful moment in nature. While others were drawn to the falls, my eyes were on the marigolds, of how they blended so perfectly with weathered wood and stair stepped their way up the glen toward the now distant trout lillies and the other woodland-based beauties of spring.

I find it so lovely here in this beautiful state park where the old growth Big Woods stands as a small memorable remnant of an ecosystem long-since destroyed for farming and commerce, much like the prairie that once extended from Canada to the tip of Texas was. Both are now basically erased from human memory. Like the pasques, trout lillies and marsh marigolds now offer a quaint reminder.

Nerstrand-Big Woods is one of a few of such remnants that the state of Minnesota has blissfully placed into permanent sanctuaries as state parks. Rice Lake State Park and Myre-Big Island State Park, due south of Nerstrand,  also come to mind, all laying east of the interstate highway. Once in the woods you can almost imagine these hills on the lip of the Driftless full of passenger pigeons back in Burroughs’ day as we can envision trout lillies and marsh marigolds hugging the nearby Canon and Straight River wildernesses for miles through dense woods.

Trout Lilies ... by Mary Oliver

It happened I couldn’t find in all my books
more than a picture and a few words concerning
the trout lily,

so I shut my eyes,
And let the darkness come in
and roll me back.
The old creek

began to sing in my ears
as it rolled along, like the hair of spring,
and the young girl I used to be
heard it also,

as she came swinging into the woods,
truant from everything as usual
except the clear globe of the day, and its
beautiful details.

Then she stopped,
where the first trout lilies of the year
had sprung from the ground
with their spotted bodies
and their six-antlered bright faces,
and their many red tongues.

If she spoke to them, 
I don’t remember what she said,
and if they kindly answered, it’s a gift that can’t be broken
by giving it away.
All I know is, there was a light that lingered, for hours,
under her eyelids – that made a difference
when she went back to a difficult house, at the end of the day.