David K. Leff, Essayist, Poet, Lecturer

The Joy of Swamps

Walking the banks of a brook in Durham, Connecticut recently, I made my way through muddy ground  and past a tangle of red maple and other woody vegetation to a patch of open water surrounded by   trees and edged in sedges and cattails.  Durham Meadows revealed many shades of green under an azure sky, and I listened to an orchestra of birdsong, frog calls and insect buzz.  The swamp’s palisade of trees surrounding me seemed to act like the resonator of a stringed instrument, and I was dumbstruck by the amplified wildness.

The Allure of Quirky Mueum Collections

You might not be particularly interested in old woodworking planes, radios, locks or clocks, but step into a museum devoted to such collections and you’ll likely find your notions transformed.  The sheer  diversity in similar objects reveals the human imagination’s reach while simultaneously reflecting larger cultural currents.  Even more, a collectors’ fervor creates contagious excitement.

Dahlias and the Love of Soil

The love of dirt is among the earliest passions . . . so long as we are dirty, we are pure.
—Charles Dudley Warner

Imagine a floral kaleidoscope and you’ve got an inkling of what my friend Gordon’s backyard looks like this time of year.  Behind his house, 293 statuesque dahlias stand at attention in orderly rows beside  sturdy oak stakes.  They’re not there to accent a perennial bed, hide a foundation, or enliven a sea of lawn.  He grows them just for their beauty, as cut flowers brightening homes and workplaces with colors so vivid they seem lit from within.