Warm Spring Morning
We walked in the quiet warmth of the wet northern forest. The calls, whistles, scoldings of the birds all about. The warm chortle of the raven, long haunting whistle of the varied thrush, pips and trills of the juncos, tits, nuthatches. The steady beat of flicker calls and then hammerings of the pileated. The robin and the goose.
The wet duff of the forest muffled footsteps. The air dense with moisture stills the air to motion and sound. Warm and deeply humid it enters the body with no other sensation than the invigoration of life.
The happy chatter of water in motion locked up too long over the cold of winter. Excitedly babbling in its freedom. Flow and overflowing, running, pooling, falling through saturated ground over rock and twig. Little pools dammed by needle and leaf and frond; stilled reflections of the treetops.
The click and flick of wing tip. The quick eye, the spy, then flight of small anonymous birds. The laughter of turkeys in the valley below.
We meet nobody this morning but are greeted by everyone. The forest again does its secret work while sitting on a woodpecker mortised log in silence. The medicine of solitude, therapy of clean air; cares dissolve. As they do the red squirrel appears over my shoulder. The black-backed woodpecker sounds behind me. The forest anneals when one sits in stillness and silence.
Alas I must make my way home now.
