Outside My Window

is a description of things found in an urban nature preserve, but it is much more. A recurring point of view in this collection of essays is the author’s search for the story behind the immediate visual impression—an attempt to see with the mind as well as the eye.

For example: The shape of the grandfather oak shows that when European settlers arrived they found the landscape of an oak savanna; The spacing of old silver maples in a ring tells of the presence of a ghost tree, once inhabiting the place in the center; The presence of small holes on a maple tree reveals the presence of an unseen bird that has arrived this spring, following the lead of others of his kind in past years; and The size of the glacial kettle in the nature preserve reveals the presence, 12,000 years ago, of a buried chunk of ice the size of the adjacent apartment house that now overlooks the preserve.