From the cut the trail curves to the left enclosed in a bower of greenery. I say to myself, "It's so quiet." Solitude. Thoreau again, "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude." Sometimes Henry, but not always. It is the absence of unnatural sound that I notice. It is quiet but by no means silent. Birdsong fills the flower-scented air. The ubiquitous songs of the red-eyed vireo and the Baltimore oriole are my constant companions. I hear song sparrows, a great crested flycatcher, indigo buntings, and yellow warblers. And what to me is a new bird—a call unlike any that I had ever heard. A white-eyed vireo, perhaps? No, I know its song. Once, then again, the third time…and at precise intervals. Actually, the caller was close; in my backpack in fact. The cell phone that Joan Simcak had given to me in case of emergency and for pickup time was ringing. Techno-illiterate that I am, I didn't know which button to punch to receive a call. I let the "vireo" finish its song while I imagined the bearded mournful face of Thoreau with his large, soft, dark eyes smiling at me and saying,"Our life is frittered away by detail…Simplify, simplify. A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone." I know, but what if that bobcat that Joan saw here on the trail last week decides to chew on my leg?                       Where the canopy opens and the sun breaks through, dame's rocket blooms in profusion. At first glance, many people mistake these two to three-foot tall plants with their deep lavender to white flowers for garden phlox or wild sweet William, also a phlox. Dame's rocket is in the mustard family and its flowers have four petals instead of the five petals of the phlox. It is one of those transition flowers that carry spring toward summer. All the early woodland wildflowers by now are spent. While there are some wild columbine, golden ragwort, and fire pink (one of the only two scarlet-red wildflowers native to this region; the other is cardinal flower, which blooms in mid-summer) here and there, dame's rocket is definitely the flower of the day along the trail. [continue...]