Green Hills

About the Book

The poems in Green Hills reflect observations of nature surrounding a small inland lake in Michigan. Many of these reflections are taken from the aspect of a lonely canoeist as he paddles on the lake and its connecting small streams in early morning. The canoeist is particularly taken by the undulating topography of the green hills arising above the far shore of the lake. The green hills are imprinted in his musings past and present. They are a mystical place to him and a place of legend. One legend that captivates him is the story passed down by local residents of the Indian Princess buried somewhere in the green hills under a huge boulder, a place that he has tried to find since he was a small boy. This search became a lifelong quest but an unfulfilled dream.

About the Author

R.W. Ruddon was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Detroit and graduate degrees from the University of Michigan. In addition to Michigan, he has lived in Maryland, Nebraska, and New Jersey. In each of these states, he learned to appreciate their unique natural beauty, which he has captured in his poems. Most of his summers were spent at a lake in Michigan near Ann Arbor. Many of the poems in “In Between” capture and reflect this environment. The poems in this volume also represent the author’s thoughts about the impact that science has in our world. Himself a scientist, the author has spent much of his professional life trying to understand the personal and the cultural role that science has in our lives and how the explosion of knowledge sometimes makes us feel on the outside looking in at the inner circles of a world that are difficult to probe. At times, we may feel caught “in between” our personal inner circle and those competing circles of our environment. The author has previously published “Green Hills,” an anthology of poems about the beauties of nature observed in a pastoral setting of the lake country in Michigan.