4 October 2020 (moss)
Kristen Lindquist
old growth
the ghost of a fallen tree
shrouded in moss
Book of Days
BOOK OF DAYS: A POET AND NATURALIST TRIES TO FIND POETRY IN EVERY DAY
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Filtering by Tag: Cathedral Woods
31 August 2019 (dragonfly)
Kristen Lindquist
fairy house trail
watching from the ferns
red meadowhawk
26 May 2019 (bell buoy)
Kristen Lindquist
Cathedral Woods
distant bell buoy
calling me in
25 May 2019 (ferns)
Kristen Lindquist
deep in the woods
cinnamon fern unfurling
the wren’s long song
June 26: Cathedral Woods
Kristen Lindquist
Cathedral Woods
a conclave of doves
rises from the trail
a conclave of doves
rises from the trail
June 25: Trail
Kristen Lindquist
after the rain
clouds of tiny moths
rise from the trail
clouds of tiny moths
rise from the trail
September 18: Cathedral Woods
Kristen Lindquist
Posted with BlogsyOctober 13: Cathedral Woods
Kristen Lindquist
May 28: Spruce forest
Kristen Lindquist
Walking on my favorite trail through Cathedral Woods, the path soft, well-padded with spruce needles and thick, bright moss, rotting stumps of fallen spruces and cones rolling underfoot. From beyond the dense wall of spruces, long ethereal song of the Winter Wren. This is a magic place. No wonder the children build fairy houses here.
Kinglet's high-pitched song
spills down like rolling cones
from the spruce tops.
Kinglet's high-pitched song
spills down like rolling cones
from the spruce tops.
May 31: Memorial Day
Kristen Lindquist
On our last day here on Monhegan we decided to hike out to Black Head through Cathedral Woods. The Cathedral Woods Trail is the one trail on the island where people are allowed to put up "fairy houses"--and then only using non-living items such as fallen twigs, bark, pine cones, and shells. I don't often hike that trail, so this is not aspect of Monhegan culture that I have much experience with beyond knowing that at one time they were outlawed altogether out here because some thoughtless people were pulling up living plants and destroying moss and lichen beds to create their fairy houses.
Most of the fairy houses we saw today were simple creations--some twigs stuck in the forest duff covered with roofs of bark and decorated with pebbles and pine cones. One fairy house had what looked like a pool. Some had rough furnishings. But the one that really touched us was the one most appropriate to today's holiday, a memorial of sorts: inside one sheltered arrangement of twigs lay a carefully placed, dead ovenbird. Outside someone had erected a little cross made of two twigs tied together with a strip of bark. Whatever happened to this little bird deep in the spruce woods, its passing was treated with reverence.
If an ovenbird
falls in the forest, fairies
honor its passing.
Most of the fairy houses we saw today were simple creations--some twigs stuck in the forest duff covered with roofs of bark and decorated with pebbles and pine cones. One fairy house had what looked like a pool. Some had rough furnishings. But the one that really touched us was the one most appropriate to today's holiday, a memorial of sorts: inside one sheltered arrangement of twigs lay a carefully placed, dead ovenbird. Outside someone had erected a little cross made of two twigs tied together with a strip of bark. Whatever happened to this little bird deep in the spruce woods, its passing was treated with reverence.
If an ovenbird
falls in the forest, fairies
honor its passing.
Photo by Brian Willson