Get Outdoors!

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Summer, according to the calendar, doesn’t begin for three more weeks. Of course, the thermometer is a better gauge of the changing seasons. 

But no matter what the season, amazing things are always going on in nature. Big things and little things. Some almost in secret.  

Lots of marvelous events take place right before our eyes, but all too often we take no notice. Sometimes we need the great poets to show us how to see.

We hope you are inspired by the Emily Dickinson poem below, and the photographs of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY, taken by WhoWhatWhy’s Ellerie Brust.

Introduction by WhoWhatWhy staff.

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A Bird Came Down the Walk

By Emily Dickinson

A Bird, came down the Walk –
He did not know I saw –
He bit an Angle Worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then, he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass –
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass –

He glanced with rapid eyes,
That hurried all abroad –
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,
He stirred his Velvet Head –

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers,
And rowed him softer Home –

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim.