Burt Kornegay

“Stop, Burt!” I braked. We were driving home one summer afternoon in 2023 when Becky spotted a box turtle crossing our driveway and called out. I thought the turtle was probably a male because, as I got out of the truck and walked up, it drew into its shell with a hiss then stared back at me with red eyes. Female box turtles don’t tend to react so warily, and their eyes are brown.

Moses Creek may be off the beaten path, but it’s no stranger to famous people. Moses himself has knocked on our door, and so have Socrates and Plato, the Apostle Paul, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton and Keats. Fellow American Robert Frost is another visitor, and I love to listen to him recite his poetry, though I’ve learned not to take him at face value. His poems often say one thing but mean something else.

Outdoors Columns Up Moses Creek: No Ode to Dejection A grave marker for a fallen Carolina wren of Moses Creek. On the title page of “Walden,” Henry David Thoreau sets the tone for his book with this pronouncement: “I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.” “Chanticleer” is an old literary name for the rooster.