Discoveries, by Caitlin Doherty

A cool breeze whips through the tulip trees, expelling their pale yellow leaves as a warning that the end of summer quickly approaches. I look deeper into the forest and see the tug-of-war between the trees fighting to keep their leaves and the wind effectively delivering the new season, but alas, the trees relinquish their grip and leaves flutter to the floor with the delicacy of a newly fallen snowflake.

From the forest floor sprouts an impossible number of yellow weeds luring fuzzy pollinators to their flowers in hopes of producing another generation before the abrupt end of the season. The bees busy themselves with the wildflowers, determined to complete their job and then hastily make their way to the bull thistle beside them, never wasting a minute. The bull thistle’s spiky appearance is softened by the purple flower that emerges from its intimidating insides, which attracts flying insects of all types. I watch as two male butterflies, an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and a Pipevine Swallowtail, struggle for the spot atop one of these blooming purple flowers, but to no avail, the Pipevine Swallowtail flutters away as its opponent successfully inhabits all of the flower’s space. The Tiger Swallowtail fans its wings while it eagerly slurps up the nectar, reminding me of gulping a cold drink on a hot summer day.

As I study the butterflies I begin to feel the heat beating down on my back, a cloak of humidity enveloping me like a swaddling blanket. I feel the beads of sweat beginning to form on my forehead, and suddenly I am more aware of my surroundings as if time had taken a snapshot and hit the pause button on the outside world. The commotion of the forest intensifies, creating a symphony of buzzing cicadas, cricket chirps, and the faint calls of a Northern Flicker. The squirrels engross themselves with scouring for acorns, spending months at a time stockpiling for the winter to come. Soon, I too, will cache scarves, blankets, and hot chocolate, preparing my Californian self for a cold winter. But perhaps the busiest creatures of the forest are the ones that often go unnoticed. While trekking through the dew-covered grass I witness a black-tailed red sheetweaver spider in the process of constructing one of their intricate sheet webs between the blades of grass. Their webs are made of a type of non-sticky silk with an elaborate design to ambush flying prey. Covered in droplets of dew, the sheetweaver spider’s web looks like a work of art, soon to be filled with a legion of tiny flies.

Continuing on the dew-ridden path of this secluded and placid section of the forest, I find myself a small set of stairs almost completely covered by soggy fallen leaves. As I sit and watch from the staircase, I feel as though I have found my own “secret garden” hidden away from the openness of the forest. Surrounded by the densely packed beech trees with long, twisting roots, I have moved into the shadows of the forest, blocked from the sun by the impenetrable understory of the trees. I take a moment to allow my senses to analyze my surroundings and in my moment of solitude I smell only the fresh scent of nature and feel the cold, damp wood that I am sitting on. The quietness of the forest seems to overpower the continuing orchestra of bird songs and cricket chirps, and as I sit and ponder the inner workings of the forest, I wonder what magical findings I may discover next time.

 

 

Shattered, by Ashraf Chowdhury

Nature has provided us with the most unimaginable wonders. Peace, relaxation, food, and much more. What have we provided nature? Trash, chemicals, fracking, and many other horrible actions. These thoughts flow through me as I walk through White Clay Creek.

 

The first sound that catches my attention is a familiar bird call but my footsteps along the grainy rocks mask this fascinating sound. I hastily silence my footsteps and wait for the bird to call again. It was clear as day, “who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?” I was so amazed that I could recognize this call. How the Barred Owl never changes the way it calls and behaves is astonishing since, as a human, I always change myself and everything changes around me. We change ourselves ever so frequently for the better or more noticeably, for the worse. I continue along the footpath to arrive at the location I hope to study nature, and nature only.

 

I arrive at my haven only to find shattered glass near leaves which lay atop a remarkable rock, able to carry the worlds burden along with mine. There is a notion which I am not able to comprehend as I observe this scene. Leaves fall from trees onto the ground in order to help plants and other living organisms develop. Humans drop waste such as shattered glass onto the ground not to help nature, but in order to help themselves. If a human is able to carry an object to an area, why cannot they take it away from the area as well? I could not clean up the litter that another of my kind had left behind since the edges were razor sharp and can cut me without warning. It will be cleaned the next time I arrive at this location when I have the proper tools to do so. Shortly after discovering the glass, I encountered something extraordinary.

 

Ducks! I could not fathom which ducks they were. All I could accomplish is observing what these beautiful creatures of the nature are doing. They waddled up the miniature waterfall and placed their heads underneath the flowing water. Their mouths open and their heads poking at something coming down the stream. It was most likely food. They approached closer and closer. I could see the orange feet, the pleasing dark brown feathers, and their striking blue bills. I then knew these were American Black Ducks. They would occasionally lift their wings and gently flap them in order to remove the splashing water of the falls off their body. It was truly a majestic sight to witness.

 

As I observed these ducks, the same theories rushed through my mind. Why would anyone leave broken glass at the presence of these ducks? What if one of the ducks swallowed the glass and dies? What can I do? Mary Oliver wrote in her poem, When Death Comes, “When [my life is] over. I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.” Do we simply want to have visited the world? Years from now, when our children and our children’s children ask, “What were you doing when the world was being contaminated with waste and the nature was being destroyed?” Do we want to simply say nothing? No! We want to say that we were trying to help by volunteering to clean up, spreading the word, or even creating technology to help the world be contamination-free. We can help the very existence that helps us.