Step delicately upon soft, mossy logs. They give way, sinking into the earth from which they sprang, many many years before. Their endurance has relented, embraced now by the simplicity of decay. Step deftly between the delicate new growth of trees and plants. Watch as they bend and sway in the breezes that sweep by your ankles.
The leaves at your feet are damp--the smell of recent rains linger. You pace along, dream-like, here below the canopy. Time seems to move in faster currents above. The rain's influence is not yet diminished by the afternoon’s hot, raking sun. Lift your head and feel the air's thickness on your lips as your breath draws in. Inhale the exhalations of those nearest you.
Be careful! You’ve nearly tripped over a root. Look down.
The wet weave of leaves are torn, revealing the histories of years past, a palimpsest of oak and maple and cherry and aspen and birch. Lost in identity, into soil, disassembled to mingle among the fine dust of forgotten mountains.
The hills summits' behind and before you once offered higher views. Shear peaks in this valley have come and gone. They rest now beneath your feet, crushed by the years, by the strength of water freezing and thawing, by wind, by scraping glaciers, by the heat of the sun, and by the pull of the earth.
There are stories in this wood which have come and gone: of venerable trees, of magnificent creatures, of foolish and enlightened men--their stories as plentiful as the leaves littering the ground, and as impermanent. They have come back to the earth that gave them form, that gave them sustenance.
I can smell the earthiness of this post. Brilliant!
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