It’s Wednesday, 2:45 PM, and the eastern sun gleams through purple New England asters on Atwater Bluff, through fluffy grass-tips on the bluff-top. There’s always beauty around us for those with time to look, or for those who make time, which is what I’m doing.
And now it’s Thursday, I’m here again, drawing asters and wondering why more people don’t come to the bluff and the beach to balance out hectic lives. Tiny Shorewood has no shortage of parkland. It’s a village caught between a lake and a river, between At-water and Esta-brook.
And last week so was I, caught between river and lake bluffs that brim with native plants, and maybe a few invaders. But then, aren’t I an invader, too, as I walk through?
At the bluff near the waterfalls in Estabrook, bikers bike past, eyes on asphalt, fishermen watch the river flow. I hope they also notice that the plants deserve more than a casual look. A wide swath of gray, green, and purple cone flowers, liatris, coreopsis, sneezeweed, and Culver's root predominated last month, along with thistle, which I love though it’s invasive. Last Friday purple, violet, yellow, and white asters and goldenrod had taken their turn.
Of course I can’t fault those fishing for watching water. The reflections are as photogenic as the trees and plants they reflect. As I look around, think about the chaos of nature, how each bend of a branch, the intermixture of flowers on a bluff, the glow of sunshine on a petal, is unexpected, I wonder why anyone would poison the earth to have a million uninterrupted, predictable blades of grass in the front yard.
