“Whose woods these are I think I know…” You do, huh? Okay, Robert Frost, I also know. They’re mine. And by the way, gotta say: you are one hell of a two-fisted poet. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is a favorite around here. Maybe it’s the woodland setting. You’re good at taking us there—avoiding the “road not taken” if you don’t mind an allusion to another of your cool poems.
So, Robert, yesterday I’m in the frost-chilled woods. The “frost” thing has nothing to do with you, everything to do with February weather.
The woods are “mine” for reasons rooted in no legal ownership, other than spending a lifetime in their familiar wilderness that’s deep enough to attract the solitary Pileated Woodpecker. They’re a half-day out of Chicago along a river and broken by swaths of prairie, but mainly they’re old growth Eastern broadleaf forest, dense and lively. Plus, I’ve given names to many locations within them, a kind of “staking of claims,” which we’ll see.
I hadn’t been back for a bit—call it a hiatus—but it was like I’d never left. My woods hadn’t changed if you don’t count a few fallen trees. No, there were things I recognized, and realized with a smile that I’d named privately. You don’t forget something when you give it a name.
I hiked past places I’d dubbed “Dead Deer Fork” and ”Raccoon Vomit Trail.” There was “Fat Beaver Beach.” And one of my favorites, “Coyote-Stare Ridge”“ I won’t bore us with explanations. You can guess the origins of such names, especially if you’re a two-fisted woods walker yourself, with your own private grab bag of funky place names.
We’ll stop, but first, gotta give a quick nod to “Scarlet Tanager Cottonwood” and “Last Meadowlark Creek.” Plus it’s fun to mention “Praying Mantis Rock”…and the “Pileated Police Pullover” at an unforgettable weedy roadside.
Point is, you just can’t help remembering a place when it’s linked to a moment, and that becomes its “name.” After a bit of a hiatus, it was great to get back to the woods and revisit those names, still there in the quiet, dependable wilderness.
