Greening

Greening

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The rains fell and the winds blew and now there is a new palette in our woods. The brown of autumn and winter, of crushed leaves and dry twigs, has given way to green.

Not just one green but many. There is the iridescent hue of new leaves sprouting on the cottonwood tree. The dark sheen of skunk cabbage and may apple as it sprouts in the lowlands. The verdant tips of new hedge growth. We live not in monochrome but in kodachrome (and probably something much more up-to-date that doesn’t rhyme).

As the green grows, the brown recedes. We no longer pad upon a bed of leaves but a carpet of grass.

Lamp Light

Lamp Light

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Our neighborhood has no street lights. The night walker’s way is lit by the diffuse glow of lamp lights, porch lights and garage lights. To make our way through the darkness we depend upon each other.

Though I grew up with street lights (and measured time by them), I have always liked our neighborhood’s softer, more individual, approach to pedestrian lighting.

But recently something has happened to our neighborhood light. It’s no longer the fuzzy yellow halo I’ve come to count on. It’s a bright white interrogator-like glare. And that’s because more homeowners now use compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs, which cost less, last longer and are better for the environment (in the long run).

As for our environment in the short run — the mellow-lit porches and lamps as faint beacons along a garden path — that is endangered.

Refilled

Refilled

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Last night, a stroll through the spring twilight. The street was quiet; only a few last-minute mulchers still covering their garden beds. (Tonight we will be covering tender plants against the predicted freeze.) To the west, the sky was streaks of brightness and a smudged contrail. To the east, a gathering darkness. In every direction, a softness born of moist soil and budding trees.

Tulips are up, dogwood is blooming and Bradford pears waning. The Kwanzan cherry in our front yard has erupted with its double pink blossoms like big greedy fists.

What was stark and monochromatic has become pliable and pastel. I left an empty vessel, and with every step I was refilled.

Left Behind

Left Behind

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A dawn chorus draws me outside. Bird song, crow caw, the rat-a-tat-tat of the woodpecker. I walk without earphones, content with the music of the morning.

On my way I spot a herd of deer. Three leap across the road in front of me, but with that finally honed sense of suburban wildlife presence, I have a feeling there are more. And soon I spot another herd, five or six of the little guys, grazing on new plants and leaves.

As the two groups merge and bound into the woods, I spot one little fellow who’s been left behind. Forlorn and nervous, he paws the ground with his small hoof. I realize suddenly that I’m the one who’s cut him off from his kin, that he can’t get to the others because I stand in his way.

I pick up my pace so he can catch up with the others. So that I no longer have to see him surrounded by basketball hoops and mulch bags, a creature as out of place as I am.

Leaves Beginning

Leaves Beginning

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As spring proceeds at warp speed I strain to catch the hedge in front of my office as it erupts with new growth. I’ve written about this hedge before, about the moment in its unfolding when the pink of the bud and the green of the leaf are in equipoise.

This year it caught me by surprise, but I’m glad I noticed. It’s important to see the hedge at its beginning, to travel the journey of the growing season together. To be able to say, I knew those leaves when they were born; heck, I knew them even before they were born.

They are tender at this point in their emergence, with all their young leaf life before them. Later on they will undoubtedly be hot and tired and weary of being green. If only they could remember how they look now, the rosy splendor of their emergence. That’s why I look and linger. I’ll remember it for them.

Once Again

Once Again

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The cherry trees blossom on their schedule, not on ours. So you rush to them after work, even if it’s cloudy and threatening rain, even if you know there will be a crush of people there.

Maybe, in fact, it’s because of the people. Their faces as careworn and hopeful as last year, their picnic baskets and cameras in tow. They are here, as I am, for renewal.

Wild Places

Wild Places

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A few days ago I wrote about Robert Macfarlane’s book The Wild Places, how the author sought remote mountaintops and bogs as comfort and as challenge. I’m almost finished with the book now, and Macfarlane has learned something.
–>He talks about the wildness that is all around us, the simple views of field and fern that may be recorded in a journal or a letter or may not be recorded at all but simply held in mind.
Most of these places, he says, “were not marked as special on any map. But they became special by personal acquaintance. A bend in a river, the junction of four fields, a climbing tree, a stretch of old hedgerow or a fragment of woodland glimpsed from a road regularly driven along — these might be enough.”

A few paragraphs later, Macfarlane says this: “It seemed to me that these nameless places might in fact be more important than the grander wild lands that for so many years had gripped my imagination.”

To take Macfarlane’s idea one step further: These nameless places are what attach us to a place, what make us feel bound to the land around us. This morning, I think about my own “wild places.”


My Heart With Pleasure Fills

My Heart With Pleasure Fills

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I’m thinking of that poem, the one we learned in elementary school, the one that seems jaded and obvious — until you stumble upon it in real time.

The other day I rounded the corner of a paved path and there was my own “host of golden daffodils.”

Or not my own, actually. That was the beauty of it. They were for everyone, were wild and free, glorifying not just a single backyard but a widespread and well traveled community woods. Tucked among the oaks and maples and just a few feet away from the skunk cabbage.

I slowed my pace as I strode beside them, wanting to savor their beauty as long as possible. Other amblers did the same that sweet spring morning. There was a hush in the air, a reverence for the blossoms.

I did not wait for “the inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude.” I took no chances. I used a camera. And now, as I look at the photograph, I remember the flowers’ surprising presence in that parceled suburban landscape. The words flow into my mind before I can stop them: “And then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils.”

In Their Glory

In Their Glory

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On Saturday morning I took one of my favorite walks — through the Franklin Farm meadow, around a lake, through a woods and back home. It is a varied terrain of shade and sunlight, and the day was so warm I could feel the old earth turning and sending its shoots skyward. Geese were grazing on deadnettle and other early spring flowers.

I’ve walked this way for years now and no longer see just the path ahead of me, the rough fields on either side. I see what has been and what will be again, the tall grasses of midsummer, the chicory and Queen Anne’s lace. I hear the crescendo of cicadas. The meadow soil has a memory, and so do I.

The walk was so lovely that I went back later with my camera. The setting sun slanted across the pond and lit up the cattails. I found a spot under a Bradford pear where I could snap meadow, pond and woods. All these humble sights that I look on in my wanderings, that have made me feel connected to this place, they were transformed in the mellow light of early evening. I saw them in their glory — and captured them that way.

A Walk in Ireland

A Walk in Ireland

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The walks we took in Ireland: along Grafton Street in Dublin, through the arch in Galway City, to the ends of the earth at the Cliffs of Moher.

The walk I remember most: An ordinary one in Donegal, fuchsia hanging along the hedgerows. The fuchsia surprised me. I thought of it as a hothouse plant, something to be coddled. But in Ireland it thrived on neglect — along with rain, mist and the soft Irish air.

This walk I remember with the fuchsia was down a small lane. The sun seemed never to set, and our summer would never end. This was a long time ago.