David K. Leff, Essayist, Poet, Lecturer

Healing an Ecological Distaster with Tourism

Imagine an eighteenth century farm that becomes a nineteenth century ecological disaster, a twentieth century tourist attraction, and a twenty-first century symbol of nature’s healing power.  Enter through the long, low gift shop filled with every kind of tchotchke from key chains to tee shirts, pencils and shot glasses.  Pony up $10.50 and you can be among tens of thousands every year that have a T.E. Lawrence moment at the Desert of Maine in Freeport, the self-proclaimed “most famous natural phenomenon” in the state.  Natural?  Well . . . after a fashion.

Beauty and the Eats: A Tree Grows in My Affection

Imagine a tree that looks as if covered with snow as May turns into June.  By September, pendant red fruits as bright as Christmas ornaments presage the holiday season.  In autumn it delivers New England  chromatic magic, holding deep reddish-purple leaves until about Thanksgiving.  Typically growing only about twenty-five feet tall, such aesthetic delights have made it widely planted as an ornamental.  But beauty is not its only virtue.  It’s a tree you can taste.

Cemetery Flash Reality

There's much hoopla today about "flash fiction," stories of extreme brevity, often less than a page long.  But "flash reality" has existed for centuries.  It's still around us.  It's carved in stone.

About a week ago, I was between meetings at Wesleyan University Press and the Connecticut Forest and Park Association.  The two are just a few miles apart.  Finding myself with an extra half hour on a sunny day, I stopped about half way between the two venues at Middletown’s Indian Hill Cemetery.  I wanted to stretch my legs and get a little fresh air.

At the apex of the hilltop graveyard I got out of my car and began strolling among the monuments, a garden of geometry and sculpture in granite, marble and brownstone.  The land fell away on all sides and I could see to distant ridges.  The sky seemed a dome dimpled by the rising earth.  Fluffy cumulous clouds drowsed overhead like sheep in a blue pasture.