The first thing that struck me about Brown’s Bog was the sound of the boardwalk. I wondered whether anyone was listening, but the sound of our class’ shoes on the old wood boardwalk sounded musical in its own discordant but charming way, something like rain on a tin roof. It took me a moment to recall the memory it recalled: an instrument of musical wooden blocks, from the playground of my childhood. Under the silver metal slide, blocks hung from chains against a wooden sounding board. Lifting them and allowing them to fall in their natural arc would produce proper, if curiously woody, musical notes. But this boardwalk never followed any expected progression of notes: it was as random as birdsong and had as much resolution.
Allowing the music to recede into the back of my mind, I went on to appreciate the dense ferns growing over the earth that moved beneath our feet. It reminded me of a willow’s ability to bend and not break while remaining sturdy enough for our suspended boardwalk. The ferns looked prehistoric; the person behind me began to hum the Jurassic Park theme to no one’s surprise.
We live in a curious world where sometimes plants eat bugs and boardwalks sing; people communicate an observed connection between now and a time no human has ever lived in, with just a few hummed notes. I’m not sure what to draw from that except that maybe sometimes conclusions aren’t necessary.
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