Personal

I was born in Liberty, Texas on August 23, 1976 to Jasper Charles and Glenda Lee Watson. I was raised on a 40-acre tract of hardwood forest near Hull, Texas. Because of this, I had the increasingly more unique privilege of experiencing the biological world within steps of my home. I had many adventures as a young man in the forests of Southeast Texas. At seventeen, I moved to Nacogdoches to pursue a degree from SFA. There I learned a greater appreciation of our natural resources and began my academic career. A myriad of friends and family, too many to name or count, have been paramount in my development as a scientist and a person. Now separated by space and time, I will forever miss the days that I spent deep in the woods of Southeast Texas; just me, Mama, and the chickens. On quiet nights, I can still hear the wind howling through the tall trees.

I currently spend much of my time in the company of a magnificent woman, Rebbekah, who shares my passion for biology, the natural world, and living life to its fullest extent. She brings out the best in me; personally, professionally and artistically...I am forever in her debt for bringing sunshine into my life.

Over the years, I have developed an appreciation for the written art of poetry. I feel that many thoughts and emotions are most purely and effectively communicated veiled in verse. I have included a few poems and poets that convey some of my innermost feelings.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Excerpt from:

Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore;--

Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day.

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The Rainbow comes and goes,

And lovely is the Rose,

The Moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare,

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed--and gazed--but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Wendell Berry (1934-)

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Charles M. Watson (1976-)

Alongside the Waterway

Alongside the Waterway

Where the foliage abounds

And large limbs arch over me,

I stand with moist feet

One with the world

My ears ring full with the sound

Of life around me

My heart in beat

With the call

Of the streamside toad

My chest rising

And falling

With the wind

Blowing through the cottonwood

As the light of day

Fades and fails my eyes

I feel the warmth

And smell the sweet breath

Of peace

Flowing across the land

And settling in places
Where wilderness remains

Death

I hope that death visits me

As an old man

Among linens

in slumber

Although, if this is not the plan

That the reaper intends

I wish that it comes

in such a way

That it makes a difference

In the lives

of those that remain

Torment

Perhaps the greatest way to love

Is to give it all away.

To go through life in grief and strife

And know it has to be that way

The happiness I want to feel

Is not mine to bear

And life is hard and far too short

To float without a sail

The auburn hair I dream about

Holds others far more dear

The lady that I live without

Lives here within my tears

To feel the touch one more time

To know she really cares

Would be like water to a man

Whose lips have parched for years

And I will wait and stand hereby

For her to come along

And if she never finds my shores

I’ll wait and wail alone