We had crowns of weeping willow blowing in the wind behind us as we ran across the rocks, careful not to step into the water below. My sister and I only had on school clothes, but as soon as we crowned ourselves royalty, those clothes might as well have been glittering gowns of gold. We each believed we were princesses, and this was our grand palace on the water. There was a tunnel where this narrow path of water started, we knew not to go near this tunnel. The cold drafts and echoes from the street cars above was enough to keep our curiosity to a minimum. For hours and hours we would escape, then, when the first tip of the sun began to disappear, we knew it was time to leave our palace-until tomorrow. This ritual continued until early fall turned into late fall, the waters became colder, and the days became shorter. I sit here now and still feel that cold, wet moss on my feet, I can distinctly remember the smell of the willow that would be soiled on our hands from twisting its vines into our tiaras. However perfect it sounds, like any other reign depicted in our history books, my kingdom, too, would soon fall.
Nikky Finney, an environmentally conscious and well respected author, shares the opinion with me that it is important for everyone to experience this type of harmony with nature. In her introduction to her book, Rice, Finney analyzes the world's past and compares it to the world's present, noticing that "this beautiful country is being turned into one half golf course and one half toxic dump," minimizing the opportunity for people to enjoy "its incredible natural beauty" (Finney intro). This environment being destroyed is not only crucial to the wildlife that depends on it, but also vital to humans' physical and mental h...
... middle of paper ...
...our childhood.
Works Cited
Cahill, Barbara. Information Officer. Proceedings of the Natural Beauty and Recreation Congress. Honolulu, Hawaii: National Association of Counties, 1967.
Dobson, Andrew. Conservation and Biodiversity. Freeman: Houndmills, Basingstoke, England, 1995.
Finney, Nikky. Rice. Sister Vision: Black Women and Women of Colour Press: Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1995.
Frome, Michael. The Battle for the Wilderness. Praeger Publishers: New York, NY, 1974.
Miller, Dennis. The Rant? Doubleday: New York, NY, 1996.
Miller, G. Tyler. Living in the Environment. Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.: Pacific Grove, CA, 2000.
Myers, Norman. A Wealth of Wild Species. Westview Press: Boulder, Colorado, 1983.
Smith, Nancy. Supervisor. Proceedings of the Natural Beauty and Recreation Congress. Honolulu, Hawaii: National Association of Counties, 1967.
Committee on Senate Energy and National Resources Subcommittee on National Parks. 3 June 2003: ESBCO. Mission Viejo Library., Mission Viejo, CA. 31 July 2005. http://web31.epnet.com/citation.
Smith, J, & Phelps, S (1992). Notable Black American Women, (1st Ed). Detroit, MI: Gale
Collins, Patricia. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York, NY: Routledge, 2000
Beale, Frances. "Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female." An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought. New York: New, 1995. 146. Print.
Warren, Nagucyalti. "Black Girls and Native Sons: Female Images in Selected Works by Richard Wright." Richard Wright - Myths and Realities. Ed. C. James Trotman. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1988.
U.S. Department of the interior, National Park Service. (2013). Endangered Species. Retrieved from website: http://www.nature.nps.gov/biology/endangeredspecies/index.cfm
Tedesco, Mark A. "This Fine Piece of Water: An Environmental History of Long Island Sound." Journal of the American Planning Association 69 (2003): 321. BigChalk. 9 Nov. 2005.
Karenga, Malauna. Introduction to Black Studies. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press Third Edition, 2002.
Brown, DeSoto. "Beautiful, Romantic Hawaii: How the Fantasy Image Came to Be." The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts. 20 (1994): 252-271.
...c Research Papers, 1964. Jackson, MS: Mississippi Geological, Economic and Topographical Survey, 1964. 15. Print.
"U.S. Tropical Islands Impacts & Adaptation." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 5 Dec. 2013. .
Digging up the dirt on Mauna Loa. (Hawaiian volcano studied) Science News v144, n25-26 December 18th, 1993 414 (1 page)
of the book. Eds. James H. Pickering and Jeffery D. Hoeper. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 1027-28. Mullen, Edward J. & Co.
* Daily, Gretchen C., ed. Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997.
On the edge of a small wood, an ancient tree sat hunched over, the gnarled, old king of a once vast domain that had long ago been turned to pasture. The great, gray knees gripped the hard earth with a solidity of purpose that made it difficult to determine just where the tree began and the soil ended, so strong was the union of the ancient bark and grainy sustenance. Many years had those roots known—years when the dry sands had shriveled the outer branches under a parched sun, years when the waters had risen up, drowning those same sands in the tears of unceasing time.