Saturday, July 15, 2023

The Joys of Midsummer Music in the Woods

This is the third year that the Friends of Herrontown Woods has collaborated with actor Vivia Font and the Princeton Public Library to stage a mix of music and poetry on the tranquil grounds next to Veblen House. 

July 15 arrived, however, with ever-shifting predictions of rain that in turn finally prompted a shift of venue to the library's Community Room.

Despite the move indoors, the program proved a delight, and nature was not to be denied participation.


 


Vivia read some of her favorite poems on nature, including The Rose That Grew From Concrete, Who Has Seen the Wind, Morning Love Song, and Arbole, Arbole, which she read in both english and spanish. 

The energy generated on stage by the Ragtime Relics was channeled into dance (a friend told me the sophisticated dance was called a Balboa). 





And nature managed to participate through an open doorway, when a couple of our younger friends of Herrontown Woods decided it would be great fun to race across Hinds Plaza and back, just as the rain was reaching full tilt. Returning with their joy, they fed us as we were being fed by the music and poetry. 
(photo: Dottie Westgate)

Thanks to Vivia Font, the library's Janie Hermann, and FOHW's Inge Regan for organizing a midsummer event of such beauty and spirit.