Shackleton School, Ashby, Massachusetts, U.S.A

I look out today and I see incredible beauty in a thousand forms, a land of serenity disturbed only at the horizon, where the gaunt shape of Boston looms beyond forest.
My hands on the rough wood of the balcony I can stare at an ocean of trees, waves of pastel, fiery crests where maple’s touch the hill tops and cascade down, into valleys distant and far. In these woods, these ancient temples of nature, can I feel safe, free of my fears if only for a short time.

It is my world, the one of the woods, for some a barbaric harshness, for me a place of rocky outcrops and wet leaves underfoot, of colors and textures so subtle only a deer could appreciate them fully, the rich tapestry of nature. There, as I walk over rotting logs above dappled streams, I transition, from boy to man, from burdened to free, from alone to a companied, if not by something I can see and understand then by nature itself.

There, in my eye’s I am no longer the Clown, clumsy and laughably innocent, as easy to corrupt and use as anyone. I am no longer the “Spy” or the “Rat”; choosing my morals over my friends, in their eye’s condemning people to awful lives though my actions.

Through thickets I can run, chasing animals as I vault this tree, a thin mist of dew drops cascading from above. Primeval it is, this world of magic in the deserted tree houses clinging to rough bark, their steps worn down and rotten thought years of neglect. There is nature, stamped into the ground by the hoof of a deer, the wood chips from a beaver desecrated tree.

There can my issues dissipate, disappear with the breeze along with the constant leaves, upwards and away. I can grow, relax my arms, perhaps even let out a scream and the odd tears, confident that no one is watching.

So follow me into my kingdom of anarchy, the forests that I can enter but not control. Walk with me as we make our own paths, stepping over saplings to reach a brook, see what I see, hear what I hear, and maybe then, maybe then will you see me.