Column: Green Space, Wild Space

There is a place just south of the town where I live that I go to be wild. I go there to wander trails made of dirt and rock, to duck my head down under low stone curtains and into caves, to stand on bluffs and look down at ravines the depth of which could kill me with a false step. I love this place, because although I have not yet learned all of its paths – indeed, I only started going there this year – I recognize its form, its logic. I have been going to places like this since my boyhood, always in response to the same urge to nature. We call this place Rock Bridge State Park, one of dozens in the Missouri state parks system.