3 September 2010

Walking in the woods makes me happy. I love going in on a trail, hearing the “outside” fade away into silence, and then having the silence fall away into something else, not silence but a quiet filled with sounds, where you can really listen instead of just hearing. The leaves rustle, whisper, and the wind sings through them, flutters them, and branches creak and squeak and pop. If it is windy there is a low thrumming and a high sweeping sound as the trees sway, the leaves dance. Crickets chirp and birds sing, from the stream frogs can be heard. A squirrel chatters overhead, scolds, then jumps to another tree. Something unseen crackles off in the undergrowth to the left, the right, never seen. I love the cool dappled light, with maybe a pool of bright sunshine here and there. And in the sun, a garter snake lies stretched and basking on a bit of fallen branch. flowers peep from dead leaves, green leaves, catching the light and shining like little stars. And then there’s the smell of the woods, smell of things springing from the earth and things returning to the earth. The new smell of spring, the warm green smell of summer, the smell of autumn leaves, the crisp scent of winter snow. I love walking through this, a visitor, but growing closer, more one with the woods as I move along. I step over a shimmering streamlet, stoop to examine a deer-print on the other side. Finally my steps lead me out of the woods, but part of me stays behind, fawn-frolicking, until the rest of me can come again.

Linne Woods, Morton Grove, IL

Zip codes make me happy because, seriously, why are they called zip codes? I mean, does your mail zip around really fast? Mine doesn’t? Maybe it makes a zipping sound when going into a mailbox or mail slot or something. Mailboxes kind of look like “Star Wars” droids, especially one by Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry that’s actually painted like R2-D2, but really, droids don’t do much zipping either. Mail doesn’t have zippers, and zippers don’t look like mail. Why not a sensible name like “postal codes”? I mean, I don’t mind “zip” codes, I really don’t. I’m just trying to understand it. And that’s why zip codes make me happy. They make no sense and it’s fun to say. Zippity zappity zoom.

Finding old, forgotten poems makes me happy. True, there are times that I wonder, “What was I thinking, but other times I re-read them and wonder why I lost them, where they’ve been all this time, and why they didn’t send me a postcard. This poem is one of those. It’s a sea-poem, and it makes me strangely happy when I read it, though I don’t know why. I don’t have a title for it. I’m just not good at titles.

In that direction lies the sea.
Its darkling fathoms call to me.
It bids me board a ship and roam
Where land is lost to wave and foam.

It bids me travel to the deep
Where dolphins frolic, where whales sleep,
Where wave and water touch the sky
And gulls and gannets dare to fly.

A soft farewell to home and land,
To green-clad meadow, beach and sand,
Farewell to kinsmen young and old,
For no one knows what fate will hold.

Then eager, board my ring-necked boat,
I raise the sail, set her afloat.
With aid from wind and aid from oar,
On paths that many took before.

I cannot say what lies ahead,
Or where at last I’ll lay my head,
Or if my time be short or long.
Remember me in deed and song.

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