Category: Medium Length Essays Page 4 of 5

Mark and I spent a few hours walking from Sound Avenue truck noise, to Long Island Sound’s faint lap- lap of wavelets on the shore. We reached a beach that is isolated. Only a few houses perched on the top of a 140 foot bluff and no beach access close by. One has two walk two miles in either direction to reach this beach. We were headed for a point on the bluff called Friars Head. It is a blowout surrounded by dwarf beech trees that looks like a monk with a bald head with a ring of hair surrounding it.

Our path was a roughly rectangular-shaped. Mark parked in the lot of a new Riverhead Town Park. Just to the left is the access road for the Dorothy Flint Nassau County Girl Scout Camp. The road also serves three private houses.

We followed the hilly road till we came to a fork. Left fork, private home, right fork, Long Island Butterfly Reserve. Professor Paul Adams stays here all summer raising butterfly-friendly flowers. We skirted his property finding a small valley to descend to the beach. It wasn’t an easy descent. Trees, brush, poor footing but finally we slid on sand off the bluff to the beach.

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It felt good to step off at the start of our six mile hike. We chose Manorville Hills County Park just east of Route 111, the core of the NYS Pine Barrens Forest Reserve. We have 35,000 acres of trails, hills, forest, and meadow to explore.

Mark, John, and I have hiked before. Mark named us the Armageddon Hikers Club because two of our previous hikes occurred after natural disasters, the big forest fire last spring, and super storm Sandy. Today, we stretched the mission. The only disaster in these hills is the erosive “destruction” due to ATV’s and dirt bikes. We met in the parking lot in the morning. John suggested bright red clothing…it is hunting season. We had a sunny, mild day.

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What was it about that cemetery that drew me to visit? A killdeer calls from above. In the unkempt section, sweet vernal grass sports its tassels. Lots of clumps of Star of Bethlehem wildflowers bloomes were scattered around the perimeter. Along with the commemorations of the lives of people, there are signs of life. I recently explored Lakeside Cemetery in Patchogue.

avestones so weathered from a century of wear that many of the epitaphs are unreadable. Some marble stones are covered with black splotchy lichens. I find pieces of white marble from broken head stones scattered around. A sprawling yucca plant obscured one stone. Many are toppled, pushed over by vandals, perhaps even natural forces of gravity.

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Both Babylon and Islip Towns have cut brush along the eastern and western edges of Hawley’s Lake making it possible to take a half-mile walk. Three problems arise:

1. The noise of traffic on north and southbound Route 231
2. There is no nearby parking. Road crossings are busy.
3. Poison ivy grows in profusion along the chain-link fence on the Islip side.

Starting from the concrete pool below the falls, we will proceed to walk counter-clockwise to the right. The double concrete tunnel carries Sampawams Creek three hundred feet under Montauk Highway.There, sweetwater becomes brackish.

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When I checked the five pots, is spotted two tiny green shoots. I set the pots in a sunny southern corner of the house. I didn’t follow the instructions (“plant Indian grass seeds from May to June in temperatures around 50 degrees Fahrenheit.”). I put the seeds in October thinking that over the winter they would soften and sprout early. These two little shoots may have defied the natural life cycle of Indian Grass.

The seeds came from the Hempstead Plains, a 19 acre county preserve on the Nassau County Community College campus. I have the distinct honor of being the poet in residence. I spend time there looking for new ideas for poems.

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