Here is the Native Plant garden: a terraced pool with geometric cascades; a wet hot corridor of mountain laurel and rhododendron; a bird-bath pond, frequented just as often by turtles and frogs. Pollinators feasting on a rainbow of stalks and sundials. Hawks in flight overhead or perched in the neighboring woods. Squirrels, black and slender, skittering …
A Yellowstone Meander
"Our remnants of wilderness will yield bigger values to the nation’s character and health than they will to its pocketbook, and to destroy them will be to admit that the latter are the only values that interest us." Aldo Leopole Yesterday dawned clear. The weather promised to be sunny through at least early afternoon with …
Coyote Lovely
It starts like this: Nonna and I were walking the baby to a different playground from our usual, when we spotted a statue I'd seen before but never investigated. I went in for a closer look. I thought it might be Balto, a hero dog who already has one stony likeness in Central Park. But …
My Mother (the Skunk Cabbage.)
To every wild feminine spirit in love with the words and the woods: Happy Mother’s Day. Through our gifts of transcending and caring and loving, we are all of us mothers. “A good mother grows into a richly eutrophic old woman, knowing that her work doesn’t end until she creates a home where all of …
Moon, moon, moon
Here is an image I love: Nonna’s kitchen with the lights off, baby at the window in her grandmother’s arms. Two heads dear to me turned away, looking up and out at a clear night sky. Guarda la luna! exclaims Nonna. Mon! squeals her laughing grandbaby. Then again in our home: my husband heaves our …
Writing the Wild 