A Winter of Forests In Winter

I got a note today from the Writers’s Den

that they want me

and a whole lot of other people, I suspect,

to write on A Forest In Winter.

Why not?

I wood therefore I am.

So anyway,

there are a lot of forests out there:

actors: Forest Whitaker

Forrest Tucker

both fun to watch when snowed in.

A book:

Forrest Gump-

a great book to read on wintery days.

Even real and very special woodpecker bait:

the Petrified Forest-

a national park of three million year old petrified giant redwoods,

to be found in Arizona,

the one place to be when it snows.

Then, of course, there are the German National Park forests.

The Black Forest, in Swabia, is one of the great ski, snow hiking, and beauty spots in Europe.

And even with snow, there is more sun here per year than anywhere else in Germany.

Just watch out for the huge number of ecology freaks,

who take great umbrage to you using a battery-run flashlight, instead of a hand-pumped.

Then there are the Bavarian National Forest-

wild and beautiful, and the oldest of the park system,

And the Harz Mountain park-

Mysterious, wild, full of legends that fairy tales are made of.

Home of the canary people-

who upped their winter income by raising birds,

usually the small green roller canary,

and carrying them village to village in wooden cages on their backs,

for sale as songbirds in homes,

or to check oxygen levels in the large number of mines in this area.

A sort of “cheep” smell of success.

Which handles the bird in the tree, tree in the forest,

forest in the national forest question.

But where exactly is winter?

Metaphysically, everywhere.

Naturalistically,

from late fall to the ides of july,

if you are from the southern parts of Germany,

or the northern parts of the USA.

And…

geographically?

There are, of course, towns called winter

in places like Colorado,

or Florida.

(Southern humor, I’m sure)

or Snow,

in Idaho, Kentucky, or Missouri,

or even North Pole,

in that great state of Alaska,

which,

forgive me if I’m wrong,

but I really can’t picture having a forest.

In winter.

But then again,

I’m from a place called Sunnyside,

which, of course,

has a forest.

Even in winter.

Somewhere, I’m sure,

under all those six feet of snow.

If you find it,

send me a selfie.

 

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