Hickory, Gooseberry, Pipeline

ALKING THE CENTER of Locka-tong Creek in late summer, my pants rolled up, I saw the tree. I had been stepping carefully so as not to catch little fish in my rubber sandals. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen so many young fish in a stream anywhere. Here I was in central New Jersey, doing my best not to squish them between my toes. The whole place was fecund as can be, with pickerelweed and wapato and marsh pennywort and broad swaths of emergent plants growing in the rich mucks between flat-cleaved Lockatong shales.