Elephantine March [Free Verse]

The herd is on the march.

They lumber with slow
      determination. 

The young achieve   
       playful swagger,
        but aren't allowed
         too wide of the line. 

I wonder whether they're
       going someplace good?

Winter Walking [Lyric Poem]

Out into a winter night,
 with snow and silence and fright.
  What's beyond the torch's light?

Rubber boots on crunching snow.
 Oh, how far we have to go.
  An hour's trudge until sun glow
 gathers on the horizon.

  Then walk 'til the day is done --
   again abandoned by the sun. 

We'll set up camp in the dark,
 try to get flame from a spark,
  and dread when next we embark...

a few hours down the line.

Nine Miles Deep [Free Verse]

nine miles down
an old dirt road 
that runs the valley,

the road disappearing
before the pass,

fading into a footpath,
and then into a vague notion

in a rare turn of events,
i can see - but not hear -
the whitewater 
that's running back toward 
from whence i came,
and then on to a sea
in some distant country

i sit on a grassy hilltop,
feeling i'm far enough 
down the road 
to be at peace

Failing Daylight [Free Verse]

i walked the rutted road
in failing daylight
& 
wondered what I might find
when it turned to night
& 
milky moonlight 
would be the only 
means to see
&
i hear the relentless chirp
of a bullfrog that can't be seen
because it's everywhere
to my non-directional ears
but 
still i look for it
&
i step into a puddle
& 
my sock is squishy
with each left step
& 
i go home

BOOK REVIEW: Forest Walking by Peter Wohlleben & Jane Billinghurst

Forest Walking: discovering the trees and woodlands of North AmericaForest Walking: discovering the trees and woodlands of North America by Peter Wohlleben
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Out: April 26, 2022

Wohlleben’s “The Hidden Life of Trees” was one of those rare books that profoundly changed the way I looked at the world, and so I was eager to read his forthcoming work. This book is at once narrower in focus (i.e. intended to appeal to the North American market, specifically,) but also much much broader (i.e. reflecting upon not just the trees but the other species that reside among them as well as how humans can best get around within the forest.) It might seem strange for Wohlleben (a German forester) to do a book on the North American forests, and I suspect that’s one reason that his one-time translator / editor (Jane Billinghurst) became his co-author. [I don’t know where Billinghurst is from, but she does add many North America-specific vignettes to the book.]

Like “The Hidden Life of Trees” this book is packed with intriguing insights into woodland environments. The twenty-one chapters aren’t explicitly divvied up, but there’s a clear logic to the grouping of chapters. An opening chapter focuses on the importance of having a multi-sensory experience in the woods, and then chapters two through five are concentrated on trees and their various parts.

Chapters six through eight explore species that work on, with, and against trees, with particular focus on fungi and other species that break down and recycle forest material. Chapters nine and ten turn the attention to how to help kids get the most out of their forest experience. The next couple chapters consider how to get the most of seeing the forest at unconventional times, i.e. night and during varied seasons. Then there are a few chapters investigating how to observe other lifeforms of the forest, particularly animals and insects.

Several chapters follow that explore how humans can survive and thrive in wooded ecosystems, including everything from wilderness survival / primitive living skills to dressing to save oneself from ticks and chiggers.

I learned a lot from this book. As I mentioned, it’s full of intriguing little tidbits about the forest.

The opening sentence of the book’s Introduction did mention it being intended as a book one would take into the forest with one, and I would say it’s not that book at all. It’s the kind of book one reads before going out (and probably returns to after coming back) but it’s just not organized in such away to make it worth lugging around (i.e. it’s not like a field guide – set up to allow one to rapidly find what one is interested in on the fly.)

That said, you’ll learn a lot from reading it, and I’d highly recommend it.


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