Friday poetry challenge: It's not about the Vikings

We stumbled upon the Indian pipes just past the Viking encampment and immediately tried to protect them--the plants, not the Vikings. 

You wouldn't expect to encounter Vikings deep in the Hocking Hills, but the absence of longboats suggests that these weren't real Vikings. If you want to encounter grown people dressed the way they imagine Vikings might have dressed and living in tents in the woods for a weekend in July, then stroll through the Viking encampment, buy some sourdough bread, look at some taxidermied foxes, and try your hand at tossing a hatchet at a target--at no charge.

We hadn't driven 90 minutes through intermittent rain just to see a Viking encampment, but the parking area for Lilyfest was Viking-adjacent, so we dutifully walked past the Vikings' tents and through thick woods to enter the annual art and nature festival at Bishop Educational Gardens. When we saw Indian pipes growing smack-dab in the middle of the trail, my husband stuck a stick in the dirt to mark the spot so they wouldn't get trampled. A futile gesture: a few hours later when we left there was no sign of the stick or the Indian pipes. We saw some clumps growing in the woods nearby, but you can't expect hordes of beauty-starved visitors to notice tiny delicate plants in the middle of a trail through dark woods.

It's been a few years since my last visit to Lilyfest but it was just as wonderful as I'd remembered. The rain kept the crowd thin and made photography difficult but also provided a welcome respite from oppressive heat and humidity. We wandered the gardens, bought some lilies to plant at home, and sat beneath the trees eating lunch while a young girl nearby played bluegrass tunes on a fiddle. 

You never know what you might find among the gardens: gorgeous orange lilies on one side of the path, sinuous glass sculpture on the other, a butterfly flitting between them, and always music wafting through the air. Despite the presence of vendors, visitors, and Vikings, it feels like a place of peace and poetry. To celebrate small but intense pleasures, let's try some haiku:

Lilies, lotuses, 
sinuous glass: nature, art,
and music bring peace.

Indian pipes, before the crowds trampled them

At the lotus pond. I love the subtle colors.

They seem startled to see us. 

I love this cat hanging from a tree.