Photo essay: Cedar Swamp Wildlife area

The Cedar Swamp Wildlife Area may be an estuary of wilderness and nature, but like many other preserves of its kind, lately it has become a symbol of tranquility and hope for those who traverse it

Our Seasons of Renewal

Photos by Moonloop Photography

Our Seasons of Renewal

Text by Richard L. Gaw

Just south of Middletown, to the east of Route 9, the Cedar Swamp Wildlife Area is made up of four large land tracts of wilderness and brackish marsh at the mouth of the Delaware Bay. For every one of the thousands of hikers and nature lovers who walk along its pathways, they are members of an audience that has gathered for a symphony of the quietest sounds. The meandering water heading south, the far-off cackle of seagulls and the nearby sonnet of a tiny bird, and the way the wind harmonizes with the cat tails to form a breathtakingly delicate whisper. Continued on Page 46

In the last year, we have had many reasons to seek comfort in destinations like the Cedar Swamp Wildlife Area. Worldwide, the popularity of trails, parks and nature preserves has surged, and for good reason: These are the places where we are finding our hope and witnessing the slow formation of our renewal.

We have arrived at Spring with the reassurance that the cold Winter of our despair and the dark rooms of our loneliness may be ending with the help of medical breakthroughs. As we wait in patient hope for the day when we can once again reach out to our families, our friends and our neighbors, we will go back again and again to the preserves and the trails and the swampland marshes. The language of their intention does not need words. We only need to go there to understand. Continued on Page 48

Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand

Spring is like a perhaps hand (which comes carefully out of Nowhere) arranging a window, into which people look (while people stare arranging and changing placing carefully there a strange thing and a known thing here) and changing everything carefully spring is like a perhaps Hand in a window (carefully to and fro moving New and Old things, while people stare carefully moving a perhaps fraction of flower here placing an inch of air there) and without breaking anything. e.e. cummings