ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, August 19, 1996 TAG: 9608190138
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Monty S. Leitch
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
TWICE THIS week I've found plants in my woods that my guide book labels "Infrequent." On a steep and shaded hillside, just above the lady's slippers, hundreds of Indian pipes (Monotropa uniflora) have sprung up. In another spot, farther along the path, a spot with more sun, a single Turk's-cap Lily (Lilium superbum) is blooming.
I walked back and forth, back and forth, by the lily maybe five times before I even saw it. And this is a blazing orange lily, not the kind of flower that fades into the background.
The patch of woods that I explore, the patch I watch, is small. It's circumscribed by a looping path, maybe half a mile long. And yet there, twice within one week, I've discovered plants that appear only infrequently.
Or, perhaps, rather than say "I've discovered" I should say, "I've had revealed to me." Because, even though I go out thinking my eyes are open to the beauty and peace available, I did walk by that lily five times - five times! - before spotting it.
The riches around us are there to be seen, waiting to be seen, maybe even begging to be seen. Begging to be noticed and enjoyed. But we stomp along obliviously, heads down, hands out, worrying instead about today's messes and what tomorrow will bring. Worrying, mostly, about money and what we've seen on TV. Failing to notice what glories are right in our own back yards. Failing to appreciate the reality around us.
OK, you've heard this before. It's a sappy message: "Stop and smell the roses." But, listen, the roses won't any longer be there to smell if we don't give a little more attention now. The "roses" around here are disappearing fast.
Someone's logging a couple of hills over from me. I can't see the operation, but all day long the sawmill and the trucks drone away. Roar, roar, roar. Beep, beep, beep. The noise is driving me nuts.
But maybe it's no worse than the noise of traffic on the road that runs by my house. In the 20 years I've lived here, that noise has gone from occasional rattly whizzes-by to a constant toiling roar. Where are all those people going?
Worse, still, are the sounds of my neighbors' target practice. Bang, bang, bang! Nearly every evening someone, in one direction or another, is popping off. Pistols, rifles, shotguns. Bang, bang, bang.
This is my only avenue for revenge: popping off against them.
Do you live in the country because you want the sounds of gunfire interrupting your nights? When you get really good at hitting your targets, what are you going to shoot next?
Maybe it's the gunfire that accounts for the proliferation of those miserable, execrable, destructive, wretched, hateful, offensive, contemptible dusk-to-dawn lights.
The blasted things are everywhere!
Why do you move to the country, and then put up street lights in your back yard? What do you fear so much that you're willing to give up the sight of the stars to protect yourself from it? I tell you, I've sat on my darkened front porch for hours and hours in the night, and the only intruders I've seen in my yard have been 'possums.
Oh, sure, there's also the occasional skunk, the occasional stray dog. But I've never seen a human intruder skulking through, bandana over his face.
No, the only human intruders who skulk through here are the ones who take a short cut through my woods, leaving pop bottles in their wakes.
Listen: Leave my woods alone. Leave your woods. Let go of your irrational fear of the dark, and leave our sky alone, too.
And, for pity's sake, please stop playing with guns.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
LENGTH: Medium: 72 linesby CNB