Did Longfellow See What I Have Seen? (photo essay)

I have romanced and been romanced by the area forests around the Wayside Inn.  I have peaced out with other poets on Poet's Rock, and cleared my mind on the glacial weather-worn stones.

Barefoot!

It's easier to hop these rocks BAREFOOT.  I hopped these rocks with my son piggie-backed until he was about five or so.  I was young, then, and he was energetic enough to enjoy it.  It clears my mind!  No choice but to land beautifully balanced on one of these stones.  It is strenous enough to keep the breathing rhythmic.  This, to me, is a sacred place.

During one sunset, in my twenty-second year, I had a moment of absolute clarity while walking across this "new" bridge. The brook was much narrower, then, nearly level with that dirt path, and the water ran faster.  The restoration of the property organized it's wild essence.  The sun was setting that day, and there were many fish in the current.

There is nothing about this area that does not satisfy me on an elemental level.  When I want a quick dose of it all, I come here to keep it real and be in the moment.

I have seen the Wayside Inn grounds, in Sudbury, Mass,  become what it is now--quite different, but I still recall the "hot" spots!  Two months ago I located a pretty little box with items jutting out, and it said something on the box--I left it there, in the very beautiful nook of a wild-rooted pine...

Everything seems to glow on a strange cloudy day.  It was BOUNCING in strange sunlight and clouds, and the breeze off the....oh, the water!  The breeze off the water was mild.

With leaves and snow the hopping can become more challenging that I care to admit.  I like to go in the spring, until it gets buggy and I cannot see the stones as well.  After that, the mosquitoes here will eat somebody alive.  This is a damp forest, usually.

There is still plenty of life out here at this time of the year.  The foliage, is like a bursting summer garden, like every single flower in full blossom, all at once.  There is no color I cannot see.

The sky didn't know what to do...clouds or sun?  Clouds or sun?  What a wild day this was, with great big clouds.  I was looking for a rainbow, but saw none...and it never did rain...

This color is slightly enhanced, but true to what I saw and was inspired by.  The yellows are casting an amazing glow on everything in this neck of the forest in this quiet corner of the small pond.

This area is loaded with mushrooms.  No matter how much they have worked on this landscape, they must exist!  I have seen so many different types of mushrooms; in the early eighties I first observed Foxfire!  My best friend argued that it was a glow worm, as she had seen it also, at the very same moment.  It was verrrry dark out!

Life was very different back then, I think.  Developments and expansion had not yet encroached upon these "forgotten" areas of Sudbury.

Lichen is a time capsule for the environment.  It is not a mushroom.  The green you see is an algae that exists in the universe for the sole purpose of feeding the lichen.  It lives no other place in the universe but inside of a lichen.  And the Lichen depends upon that algae, too!  They have a wonderfully symbiotic relationship.  Out of need or for each other's sole purpose?  How the heck do I know?  I know scientists are taking lichen more seriously as an indicator of what is going on in an environment.  They can live for thousands of years!

When I come here I get sort of philosophical, and I think about deep stuff.

The leaves retain their Autumn color, muted beneath the shallow water.   

This is one of my favorite trees in the world.  This beautiful tree has been here the longest that I can recall, besides maybe five other trees here which still stand.  It's stamina impresses me year after year.  I want to go into this hole!  I think, technically, this is my THIRD favorite tree ever!  If I lived here, I would feel luckier than Genie in her bottle!

Over the years, growing up in this area, I did not know the history behind this place AT ALL.  As much passion as I had for these forests and these old buildings (oh, I will show those details on another photo essay) and stones and rocks and brook and pond (where a Blue Heron no longer resides), I never cared much about the history, because all I saw was the beauty, magic, and mystery of the place.

This is the forest where Henry Wadworth Longfellow was inspired to write his famous poem, "Tales Of A Wayide Inn".

I understand Longfellow.

"...  Around him evermore the throng
      Of elves and sprites their dances whirled;
      The Stromkarl sang, the cataract hurled
      Its headlong waters from the height;
      And mingled in the wild delight
      The scream of sea-birds in their flight,
      The rumor of the forest trees,
      The plunge of the implacable seas,
      The tumult of the wind at night,
      Voices of eld, like trumpets blowing,
      Old ballads, and wild melodies
      Through mist and darkness pouring forth,
      Like Elivagar's river flowing
      Out of the glaciers of the North..."

~excerpt,  "Tales Of A Wayside Inn" by Henry Wadworth Longfellow.

Read HERE for more!