OK, maybe it is raining on the day you find this article, but when the weather turns suitable, consider a visit. Local readers are probably familiar with Chattanooga’s the eight-mile paved trail known as the Riverwalk, and particularly that section known as the Tennessee Riverpark, maintained by Hamilton County Parks and Recreation (http://parks.hamiltontn.gov/). The playground, fishing peers, boat launch, picnic tables, gear rentals, and grills are popular attractions. Families and organizations can reserve picnic shelters for large groups. The phone number for reservations is 423-493-9239.

Though I like the Tennessee Riverpark for group events and bicycling, I thoroughly enjoy two other areas along the Riverwalk. Bird watchers and other nature lovers will particularly enjoy Amnicola Marsh and the Chickamauga Dam area.

Amnicola Marsh is perhaps best known for the American Lotus which bloom and go to seed in late summer. The margins of the large open area are home to a variety of wetland plants, including buttonbush. The surrounding forest is a lowland second growth forest, parts of which occasionally flood. 
The open water inside the vegetated zone has numerous snags, dead trees and shrubs which provide perches for numerous birds. Great Blue Herons are usually abundant, and Green Herons are common. Other wading birds, shorebirds, and waterfowl are seasonally abundant. 

For those not familiar with the birds I name, I recommend viewing photos in a bird guide or on popular web pages, including that of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology https://www.allaboutbirds.org/ or the National Audubon society https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/wood-duck. 
 
During one particularly hot and dry summer, a juvenile Wood Stork made an appearance of several days. Great Egrets are numerous at times, and bird lists have included immature Little Blue Herons and Snowy Egrets.
 
Killdeer are known to nest here and it is a stopping place for Solitary Sandpipers and, on occasion, rarer shorebirds. 
 
The colorful Hooded Mergansers have appeared in winter. Other ducks are common. Mallards and Canada Geese appear year-round. Wood Ducks probably nest here. Gadwall, Green Wing Teal and Northern Shovelers are winter and spring residents.
 
The area immediately below Chickamauga Dam is also popular for bird watching and fishing. A sign installed by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation warns fishers to limit consumption of catfish caught in the river. Peregrine Falcons have been known to nest here. Gulls are abundant in winter, with occasional rarities.
 
Osprey nest in the area, and frequently fish below the dam. Bald Eagles appear occasionally. Nest boxes maintained by a corps of volunteers have yielded several clutches of Eastern Bluebirds and Tree Swallow. 
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August 25, 2018

​I sometimes believe that writing is like those natural phenomena described as sensitive to initial conditions. If a meteorologist starts with one data set and feeds it into a predictive model, they conclude with a weather forecast for the coming days. Suppose that the same meteorologist begins with conditions that appear along the path of that prediction and feeds that data into the same computer program. In that case, an entirely different forecast may result. This factor makes long-range forecasting nearly impossible.
 
Try this experience as a writer. Pick a sentence from one of your essays, poems, or short stories and use it as the starting point for a new piece. Where does it end up? Is it the same story or an entirely new creation? Of course, some readers may respond that they already knew that writing is a chaotic process, even if not in this scientific sense.
 
In natural systems, this phenomenon is called the “butterfly effect.” Meteorologist Edward Lorenz discovered this effect while working with predictive models. His brief biography in the Encyclopedia Britanica.com includes an animated video that gives a rapid-fire but more complete description of the phenomenon. 

I have a new chapbook coming out soon. Self published, but more than 1/2 of the poems have previously appeared in journals such as Quill an Parchment, The Avocet, Number One (Gallatin, Tennessee) and the Weatherings anthology from FutureCycle Press. Hear are the back cover blurbs. 

in praise of  
 HEALING & CONFLICT

‘I have come to understand / that my poems are not poems . . . but the poetics of the earth’ (‘Introduction Part I’). Ray Zimmerman explores nature through language and language through nature. With images and similes like ‘The winter snow arrived like a sonnet. / It reached the house in three waves, / capped by a couplet of ice’ (‘Winter Snow’), the reader becomes immersed in Zimmerman’s vivid landscape, both verbal and actual. Though he claims, ‘My poems are shadows on the wall’ (‘Intro Part II’), Zimmerman’s words intrigue the reader as she delves into the subtext of these poems, and they continue to haunt her long after the book is closed.
KB Ballentine Almost Everything, Almost Nothing

In ‘Introduction, Part II,’ Zimmerman says ‘If you enjoy my poem about falling rain or about cranes in flight . . . go and watch rain falling on parched earth . . . listen to cranes trumpeting as they take to the air.’ These poems not only have a prayerful devotion to the natural world but use specific names, images and Zimmerman’s hard won humor from handling hawks, eagles and owls. His sensory details and deeply personal voice enrich the poetic work in this new collection.
Bill Brown

Ray Zimmerman’s collection of poems Healing and Conflict invites the reader outside: ‘go and watch/rain falling on parched earth. /see it come back to life.’ His words, like that rain, are transformative to those who look and listen. Trees burn with ice, water cascades, booming, against mountain hardwoods. Most memorable are the birds. Warblers, hawks, barred owls, chickadees, and cranes provide this book’s unifying motif, and a delightful surprise, when the reader joins a flock of blackbirds in flight.
Marsha Mathews, Beauty Bound