Alone on the Friendship Bench

Feeling the burden of finding a place, close by, for our final collective ramble, I forsook the Friendship Bench once again, in order to explore Ashbridge Park. I think this is our place!
Re-storation.
Re-stori-ation.
Re-story-ing.

I didn't go into the woods this Monday morning, when I was spending the time curled up cozily in my apartment in Center City, watching the news of the "Frankenstorm," the "monster" Sandy, puzzling over the disconnect between my "hurrication" and the media description of the disaster swirling around me. Ever since mturer put the problematics of representation back on the table (naming hurricanes to make them less threatening?), and froggies315 provided that  "awesome" windmap for comparison with the wierd music videos the Weather channel was using for their live coverage, I've been thinking about ecological literacy (okay, well, just thinking about it more pointedly), wondering what more responsible reporting might look-and-sound like.

I may have found one example in this morning's NYTimes: it's about the enormous oyster beds, built up over 7000 years and now entirely depleted, that once formed underwater reefs around the shores of New York, creating "undulation and contour on the harbor bottom that broke up wave action before it could pound the shore with its full force. Beds closer to shore clarified the water through their assiduous filtration...this allowed marsh grasses to grow, which in turn held the shores together with their extensive root structure."

"There is no time" (Rachel Carson)

Time was short.
(I didn't "leave" myself enough of it.)
Time was long.
(I counted the rings on fallen trees.
150 years apiece.)
The stones in the graveyard evolved.
From Wissahickon Schist (surely?) to marble (really?).
How long will that last?