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.