Drop a pin on the quietest place in Manhattan,

And this is it, a glen in the Inwood Hills,

Steep slopes with real woods, 

And there in the trees is the pine fort.

 

It’s a stockage with walls of woven pine,

An oval the size of a swimming pool,

In Manhattan’s only place where land is for play,

Time is for wasting and the woods are just for messing around.

 

I happened by on a day when these woods were medicine for me,

A balm for all the straight lines and pinging phones,

The concrete and metal, the roar of trains,

A day when it all just started to throb like a toothache.

 

So I headed here, to these city woods, for a day of play,

Like those afternoons after school,

When I went to the creek to throw rocks,

Wave sticks,

Make dams,

Look under bushes,

Dig clay,

Turn over logs,

Crawl into hollows,

Follow scents,

And look at birds,

With no thought of the weather,

My jacket forgotten in bushes somewhere,

Mud streaking my forehead,

An afternoon that disappeared into dusk,

Until hunger drew me back to a place,

Where I could be fed.

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