I don't know what others call this rock in Ravenswood Park.
I call it "Turtle Rock" since it reminds me of the head of a turtle straining from its shell to take a look around.
Turtle Written by Kay Ryan
Who would be a turtle who could help it? A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet, she can ill afford the chances she must take in rowing toward the grasses that she eats. Her track is graceless, like dragging a packing-case places, and almost any slope defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical, she's often stuck up to the axle on her way to something edible. With everything optimal, she skirts the ditch which would convert her shell into a serving dish. She lives below luck-level, never imagining some lottery will change her load of pottery to wings. Her only levity is patience, the sport of truly chastened things.
A solitary walk through Ravenswood Park often gives one a chance to slow down and reconnect with nature. The paths through the woods offer many similarities to one's life. It could be climbing a hill or tackling a problem, or perhaps wondering where a path will lead.
Other times, the path is littered with broken trees, much like broken dreams or plans, or old trees yielding to new ones much like old ideas and habits yielding to new perhaps better ones.
The Blynman Bridge, a.k.a. the Cut Bridge is raised and lowered to allow boats to go between the Annisquam River and Gloucester Harbor.
The red lights flash on, the siren screams, the gates swing across the boulevard, the gears grind, and the jaws of the drawbridge crack open to let a fishing dragger through. For a few minutes Gloucester is almost an island.
-- The Gloucester Guide by Joseph Garland
The gears are moving again. The bridge is coming down.
thecutbridge.com has a live webcam of the Blynman Bridge in operation.
It's almost done. Soon, the gates will rise and the cars will begin crossing.
Then the jaws descend and shut with a toothsome click, the gates swing clear, and the line of summer traffic drones across again, always with that urgency: can we make it before the next one shuts us off?
The Gloucester Fishermen's Wives Memorial stands looking out over the harbor on a late summer morning.
The site was designed by Ann Gilardi Johnson. The sculpture was created by Morgan Faulds Pike.
"The memorial serves as a testimonial to what wives, mothers, sisters, and children of fishermen of the world have endured because their men chose to be on the water. They had no choice but to stand on rock, to be on land." -- Angela Sanfilippo at the dedication ceremony on August 5, 2001
