Crossing

On the last day of November, I took a hike to the river. It was early. The day was cold. The sun was climbing brilliantly from the horizon towards mid-morning sending golden rays down again through the frozen mist.

I often had come to this place, only sitting in the woods, clinging to the hillside, a few feet from the road in the midst of steamy summer when the brush and bugs were almost impenetrable.

With the clean sweep of autumn however, I could see there was a better way. I would circle round the field, straight down to the river where a muddy sand bar was washed on a bend in the stream.

I crossed the barren field. The ground was frozen and every last bit of foliage was plowed under. Then down through a small patch of brush, I came to the river and slid down the bank.

But if the bugs were dead, and the ivy and snakes banished, the thorny brambles, the prickly burrs, the hidden holes in the rough terrain, did their best to dissuade me, but I would not be dissuaded.

Along the way, (eureka!) I found a piece of chair, a woven mat, enough to keep me off the cold ground, and I laid it down and sat in the tall remnants of grass and peered out from my nest surveying the river.

The water pooled before me like smooth azure glass. The leaves lay along the edges encased in sheets of ice, frozen. A bird sang solo, and then there was silence.

The trees across the river stretched skyward-- bare, brown, graceful and still, poised for the long sleep on the frost filled earth.    

Autumn was over.  

Winter had come.

"It was You who set all the boundaries of the earth. You made both summer and winter." Psalm 74:17

Till August Ends

I was driving at the end of the day, at the end of summer or nearly the end, mid-August when summer is as ripe as it will ever be, the fullest moment just before the finish.

The air was heady with green and steam, so thick you could taste it. And I drove along the fields, fields of soybeans, fields of hay, and the mist hung in the rills and filled the ravines, drifting upwards softening the edges of everything. Everything was rich and ready for harvest.

I turned down a gravel road, Stump Hollow, a private path, now with an uninvited guest.

The clouds were billowing up, thunderheads tinged in rose and blue, moving ever so slowly across the sky.

Then I left the fields, and the road led me into the woods where a bridge worn and rust covered crossed a muddy stream. It rained today, poured today, stirred the mud and left earth steaming.

I was a little afraid, but I crossed anyway.

And on the other side, in the shadows of the downward slope, twilight had already come. But the grasses hummed with life. Yes, everything was singing.

The gravel gave way to dirt, and I came to the end of the road.  I had to back down and turn around in another's place. It made me shy. I had stolen their space, for a moment.

No, I was taking it home with me,

Thoreau and I--retaining the landscape, carrying off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow.

And so, the harvest in hand, the richest bounty of the year in my pocket, I headed homeward picking fruit along the way, gathering every moment, till August ends.

The Awakening

On Sunday, I woke early, and I dressed and left the house in search of green. I had been driving to work each day on the back road which wound along the river. And in the mid-morning on clear days, the sunlight, gold and brilliant, ignited the green in the valley and fields as can only happen in April. There was no stopping then to take it in, but this morning, winter weary, I was going to get some green.

But the day dawned gray.

Never mind, I had to go, and chose as my destination a long valley along a sandy creek where the fields were still new and soft, and the air slightly cool and damp was soft too. I crossed the bridge and took the field between the creek and road and waited in faithful expectation of a clearing and sun at last, but no.

The light, though, was pleasing and the colors not vibrant but soothing blue and cool myrtle green.

And as I walked I realized it was the moment before, just before the trees spread their spring canopy. Everywhere leaves were emerging from the buds. The trees, for so long bare, were in truth green through and through and beginning anew with the season.

Even in their nakedness though, they were beautiful, an awareness that eluded me in my youth, in my life until now.

 And I spent the rest of the morning admiring them bare or beginning soaking up the river, roots covered with earth and a blanket of grass. 

And there was a whisper of lavender, the first wild phlox among the blades.

It was a temporal moment, as they all are, but this so soon to pass and the trees adorned in summer clothes in the next breath.

And bright or dim, green or gray, I decided to hold and make the most of the day.

 I walked along the banks of the creek to the river and my shoes sank in the soft earth.

Early wild flowers were opening and the pastures were verdant if the crop rows were barren.

And on the return I noticed that one tree stood apart from all the others. I had seen it first when I stepped into the field, and now on my way in shadow I noticed--a sycamore old, broken, hollow, in all likelihood near death, and yet budding like the rest. And I looked at it long and close. 

And I saw it as an ancient mother, the sower of a thousand trees. I saw it holding the soil, standing in muddy deep floods in the spring. I saw the top whisked away in a whirlwind taking its crown, and its long and high youthful aspirations. And in its old age, as it hollowed and its limbs became knotty and gnarled, I saw it as a home for wild things, a shelter for the great horned owl, and a nest for a humble family of squirrels. And in its own shadow it was both frightening and compelling.

For the tree stood at the edge nudging closer to the end and ever after. Yet, it was still green, in places, mostly to one side, budding here and there in hopeful spring, green.

And from now on, on my way down that curvy back road, over the river, round rock walls, past fields, in every season and sometimes in that glorious golden green of April, I will look for that tree in the field and in me.