Just south of Middletown, to the east of Route 9, the Cedar Swamp Wildlife is made up of four large land tracts of wilderness and brackish marsh at the mouth of the Delaware Bay.

For every one of the thousands of hikers and nature lovers who walk along its pathways, they are members of an audience that has gathered for a symphony of the quietest sounds. The meandering water heading south, the far-off cackle of seagulls and the nearby sonnet of a tiny bird, and the way the wind harmonizes with the cat tails to form a breathtakingly delicate whisper.

In the last year, we have had many reasons to seek comfort in destinations like the Cedar Swamp Wildlife Area. Worldwide, the popularity of trails, parks and nature preserves has surged, and for good reason: These are the places where we are finding our hope and witnessing the slow formation of our renewal.

We have arrived at Spring with the reassurance that the cold winter of our despair and the dark rooms of our loneliness may be ending with the help of medical breakthroughs. As we wait in patient hope for the day when we can once again reach out to our families, our friends and our neighbors, we will go back again and again to the preserves and the trails and the swampland marshes. The language of their intention does not need words. We only need to go there to understand.

Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere) arranging
a window, into which people look (while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here) and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things, while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there) and

without breaking anything.

e.e. cummings