Poem for Sunday and Autumn Nature Trails

The Child Is Father To the Man
By Gerard Manley Hopkins

'The child is father to the man.'
How can he be? The words are wild.
Suck any sense from that who can:
'The child is father to the man.'
No; what the poet did write ran,
'The man is father to the child.'
'The child is father to the man!'
How can he be? The words are wild!

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The weather was magnificent on Saturday, so after lunch we went to Brookside and Meadowside Nature Centers. The latter had an event earlier in the day so people could watch the raptors eat and talk to their keepers, but Adam slept very late after getting almost no sleep on Friday -- he hadn't gone to bed till after 1:30 a.m. working on an English project, then he had school, the pep rally, and the Homecoming game -- so we realized we weren't going to get there in time and went afterward, when we figured the trails would be less crowded.

Brookside has a fall chrysanthemum exhibit in the conservatory, which also has displays of harvest fruits and vegetables, and there are plenty of flowers blooming outdoors where the turtles are still active, though we saw very few Canada geese. At Meadowside we briefly visited the animals inside the nature center, then hiked in the woods, where the leaves are slowly turning yellow and orange around the stream. The hawks weren't out, but we saw the barred owl and bald eagle before we left.


Here is one of the chrysanthemums in the greenhouse at Brookside Gardens.


Outside, the trees were showing fall color.


A baby turtle was swimming around this adult turtle, who looked dubious about having people around.


These cattails were covered with black and orange caterpillars.


The ducks didn't want to get out of the pond to eat the grass.


The fall color at Meadowside was reflected beautifully in the water...


...and falling slowly on the paths.


The owl looked sleepy, perhaps worn out by the earlier raptor event.

Adam went out to dinner and to the homecoming dance in the evening while Paul and I had blackberry "chicken" and watched the Rangers beat Detroit, which was not what we were rooting for...and worse, Maryland lost to Clemson, in a game that was not televised here, after leading for a while. It sounds like Adam had a good time but he lost his phone (or it was stolen, he isn't sure which), meaning we had to find out how to cut off access while he was still out with his friends. Supposedly Verizon blocked it but he still appears to be signed into Gchat on Android, which makes me nervous!