Hummingbird I sense a steady murmur since you’ve gone a flutter of heart at the sun, a quickening of breath on the ledge, a lonely sigh or creak in the night, a dwelling of mayflies on the water. A buzzing reminder, a remembrance; the hummingbird whisper in my ear. Meredith Boe Poems While You … More Nature Poem – Hummingbird
Sing to me about man’s inhumanity And all the injustice you see Sing sparrow, sing, little sparrow, sing Sing about what to give Sing about about how to live I want you to sing your tune, sparrow Oh, little sparrow, sing -Marvin Gaye, “Sparrow” You open the window to a familiar song that sounds like … More Let’s Talk about the Sparrow
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning. Carl Sandburg, “Chicago” Each city has its very own set of noises. The streetcars in San Francisco sound different lumbering down the street than the faint sound the Metro emits up … More Chicago Sounds
“What is important is anyone’s coming awake and discovering a place, finding in full orbit a spinning globe one can lean over, catch, and jump on. What is important is the moment of opening a life and feeling it touch–with an electric hiss and cry–this speckled mineral sphere, our present world.” As a reader and … More Annie Dillard’s Nature Writing & Women at Home
“Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836) Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote many reflections on what makes nature, nature. It’s true that when we think of the natural world, roads and skyscrapers don’t come to mind, but mountains, rivers, lakes, ocean, wildlife, vegetation. But, looking out a hotel window downtown … More Defining Nature
How winter emphasizes the movements of wild life! The snow and the cold are the white paper upon which the print is revealed. … More The Dead of Winter
The world is full of signs and wonders that come, and go, and if you are lucky you might see them. Once, twice. Perhaps never again. -Helen MacDonald, H is for Hawk On November 23, 2017, my boyfriend and I drove out of Chicago to my mother’s house in Lake in the Hills, a small … More Wonders That Come, and Go
I’m sitting here in my Logan Square apartment on a Sunday, and it’s fairly quiet. I can easily hear the ‘L’ every fifteen minutes or so, whooshing by in its subtle way, delivering people to or from the airport, downtown, home. I just finished Meghan O’Rourke’s piece in the New York Times’s T Magazine, Lessons in … More Quieting Down: Open Space for Thought
Humboldt Park is known for its calming nature paths and Puerto Rican influence. … More The Quiet Urban Nature of Humboldt Park
As Chicagoans know, it’s always cooler by the lake; but I think of the bright Lincoln Park sun in autumn more than I think of the cold. Lincoln Park holds some of my favorite spots to spend time in Chicago. But with an area of about three miles on the Lake Michigan shore, stretching from Ohio … More Chicago Autumn Strolls: South Lincoln Park
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