Just Before Dark

Let me tell you about God's world--it's gorgeous. Every moment that I step out and into the outdoors I'm awed, mesmerized and grateful. He did a good job. I'm so glad he is taking me along for the ride.
 
Take an evening earlier this week when I took an excursion about an hour before sunset. A friend and I took gloves and buckets and walked the woods along the barren fields and the more untidy banks of the Big River.

The weather was once again unseasonably warm but the trek was not all that pleasant, for though the cold didn't bite us, the undergrowth did. The caney weeds, thick and tall, slapped our faces. Vines tangled round our ankles and thorny stems grabbed our thighs even through the denim. We could have used a machete, but even without one, and the unpleasant traveling against the tide, I wouldn't have missed the trip.

For as we made our way through the undergrowth, we walked the same paths of other creatures that like to walk the river.  And although we didn't see the creatures, we found a place brimming with life. Little raccoon hands and or er feet were printed all over the sandy banks. A small deep hole opened like a cave at our feet, likely home to a sleeping groundhog. There were deer tracks of course and lots of hollow logs perfect for hiding in. And there also was lots of construction going on... 

Needless to say a patch of woods between the corn fields  and the river is a happy place for God's wild friends-and me too. We could hear the cars on the highway though as we made our way under the concrete and steel of the bridge, a rolling constant like breakers against the rocks. And the woodland animals were not the only ones that had been here, the abandoned belongings of the more civilized beasts were scattered about, beer cans and empty water bottles mostly, cigarette packs and food wrappers and then rubber gloves, a plastic bag full of foil packs probably tossed from the highway above us, and for a moment the world became a more sinister place, no, a sadder place.

Then the day grew darker, and despite my doubts, the mystery, the marvelous mystery was moving in on the bank of that river, a place like any other and less than most. I heard the cry of the kingfisher as it swiftly sailed past. A hawk giving up the hunt for the day headed east flapping smoothly across the field. Then the stillness set in, and it seemed I was in another place. 

 With the setting of the sun, that narrow wooded bank took on an exotic air. The sky colored in waves and the river resounded them with echos of light. The barren boughs, the tall black hardwood trees, the reeds piercing the rose and blue pools, seemed to me inked into the landscape by an artist's hand.

It was only for a moment, but my heart was lifted and I wanted to get down on my knees.

Then my friend and I climbed the banks back to the field. We would take the easy path home through the plowed earth carpeted with corn. 

The sun had vanished behind the hills. A purple plume rose above it like the sun lie smoldering beyond.  A large flock of geese honked overhead and swirled around the field looking for a place to settle.

The dusk blanketed the earth, and the mystery receded in the twilight. I was back in the familiar, and on my way home, just before dark.