Walking The Fence

When I woke up this morning, the world was muted with a mist of early spring. I was bone weary. Too much done, too little sleep. My usual 2 extra strong cups of coffee were somehow not sufficient to jump start my battery and so, unusual for me, I had a third. Weary still, I put on my cracked and worn knee boots and grabbed my barn coat, buttoning only the top button on the way out the door. I trudged through the empty corn field, littered with last harvest's stalks and cobs, some rows my feet sinking inches into the dirt, some rows staying afloat on top of the corn and stalks. As I reached the edge of where our woods run the length of the field, I eyed my destination, the corner of the field where our woods meets our neighbor's woods.


Here, I noticed old weathered fence posts, running the length of the back of the woods, something I had not noticed before, and as I chose the woodland side over the field and headed progressively north, I was aware that I was entering a caverna magica of the forest. The trees in the section were especially grande and high, arching their ancient backs and fronts toward and away from each other. I could here their conversations to one another, sighing with the wind of time. Mossy creature entrances of every proportion lurked around backsides of secret trunks and the birds were deafening in their song. They were definitely much much ahead of us people in their preparation for spring, knowing their time and place. I looked down often, and said to myself, "you must quit looking down, but look up". And, lo, as I looked down at that moment I found the most magnificent rock, molten together of glass like shards of some mica like substance I had never witnessed before. I placed it in my coat pocket. On the ground, the wild geraniums, dandelions and chickweed had a fair head start from the vegetation that is seemingly still non-existent back at home.

Bending down frequently, I collected woodland debris for a project I am working on, and headed deeper into the woods. A cool mist of cloud fog touched my face as it rolled by, and a trio of blue jays squawked and jabbered to each other.

Now aware that coffee was no longer a necessity for my awareness and awakening, I walked alongside deer prints, coyote prints and raccoon prints in the melting islands of snow and headed back home through the angle of the woods. I will try and share a bit of my woodland debris project with you when it is finished.