Monday, June 4, 2012

Other islands


We took the R subway to Whitehall, crossed New York Harbor on the ferry, and then hopped onto the Staten Island subway, which is hardly sub-: it is above-ground (views of stand-alone houses with above-ground swimming pools which I took to be hot tubs). Two stops from the end of the line we got off and walked into the woods.


This is state forest land. Vince had been here twice already, on his own. He had seen osprey with fish in their talons.  He had seen a yardlong snake. He had seen ground hogs. In short, he had seen all the game that this city has to offer, and then some. I could not believe that he was this excited about Staten Island, site of the notorious Poison Ivy Incident of 2009 (no surface had gone untortured).

But he was enthused. We packed bread, some sausage, some cheese.


We found puffballs and mushrooms of unknown genus and species. We saw bunnies, little brown ones, quite unafraid. We heard squeaking frogs which shrieked before they plopped into the duckweed covered ponds we passed on our way to the water.


We saw a blind man who had ridden the subway out with us, being led by his son, walking at a clip through green fields. We saw a tattooed man with long hair holding the small hand of his small daughter: We saw a bunny! they told us. 


We saw dogbane and dog roses and cinquefoil and a mulberry treed bowed down with fruit. My heart broke when it proved insipid. 


We photographed a shrub I did not recognize, with acacia-like leaves, blooming in the sand as a huge blue tanker passed on its way to open water, and at the end, on our circle back, we found a field full of milkweed, in bud. 


On our walk to the station Vince led me past the ground hog burrow where three young ones eyed the traffic, in turn. We passed dense stands of knotweed hacked back from the road; half naked men barbecuing on a porch above a muddy driveway; washing hanging on a line above long grass.

We felt a million miles from home.

The orange ferry returned us, packed among tourists doing the free round trip on the water, from whom we seemed no different. Manhattan appeared in a grey haze. The tourists strained and fretted about the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty. They hissed at their failing batteries and the lack of clear light.

We were rather quiet. We had seen the other side.

4 comments:

  1. Lovely, Marie. Such a beautiful travelogue of a place we NYC tourists will likely never visit. Think the legume might possibly be lead plant (Amorpha canescens) or a related species.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So, mystery solved ... Staten Island. who knew!

    ReplyDelete
  3. While I live in the subtropical, southwestern part of Florida (zone 10), my oldest son is happily living in Atlanta. He's the one who directed me to your blog of 66 Sq Feet and I'm thankful for it.

    I like traveling through art! For example; I grew up in S.E. Asia and recently when I was on vacation in the southernmost city of the US (Key West), I happened to see a film called The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Wow. A group of elderly Brits travel to a spot in India to retire and find love and life in the midst of all that color. It was breathtaking.

    I hope you go see it. And check out all that foliage you don't normally get to grow! :)

    ReplyDelete

Comments on posts older than 48 hours are moderated (for spam control) . Yours will be seen! Unless you are a troll. Serial trollers are banned.