Still there were
no rains. Sometimes I heard the far off sound of a rustle in the leaves and
stopped to look. Silent I. Still. There were as of late chipmunks that scurry
away. Sometimes they go up, and sometimes down into intricate decaying logs
thick chaparral. There are also squirrels. But a few times it has been a
coyote. The coyote that has been seen is not with mange and frail, but quite
the opposite. He or she is thick with beautiful brown fur, and the sun really
does sometimes glisten through the tops of branches and then down to his coat.
The last time I saw him was while I was in the valley. He had been there first.
It’s interesting to say that he followed us, but it was not the same. We
arrived upon him, near a drinking source. He looped around watching a few times,
and then finally went off the other way to disappear quite seamlessly into the interior
craggy rocks and brown leaves and old proud Pine trees. I thought it might have
been him again. There is no way to know. How great it is to see him, like a
gift, a presence, a vision. Auspicious. He is a magical trickster archetype.
I continued to
walk along. There was a series of wildflowers and a dragonfly came to stay
briefly at my feet and then went off. A few bees were buzzing around and a
small plane, perhaps one engine, came sounding over the tree line. Nobody else
around. A bit hot even with the breeze. Man, - no rains. How it would have been
if the sky turned and the water came in thick summer droplets as if in a movie
or book, from the late afternoon sky. And the coyote or snake passing across
the path. No- just the hum or soundless sound of something. Maybe existence
itself. I didn’t even do the full circle at the end, by the sandpit. The furry
friends were too tired and hot. They sought shade under a large tree and waited
for a while in the tall grasses. The grasses there are impossibly green, beyond
hunter, forest, textured, dark- there is no name for them, no name at all, for
the green that is almost black, that borders on becoming something else.
Going back were
two or three really tall dandelions waiting there halfway in the sun and
halfway in the shade. Beyond that, some hollowed out trunks, spider webs, and
the sight of the large hill. The summit’s golden brown growth eventually meets
the blue sky. Sometimes the sky is deep blue, and other times a light pastel
thing. The clouds have their own moods also- long and sleek one day, fluffy and
storybook cumulus the next, and then perhaps truant. I am not so keen on the
days when they overtake the entire firmament in one glossy and opaque mess. It’s
hard to see hawk, black bird, or plane or sun then. Well, for the heat and sun
the area has grown so well and thick that I did not realize I was at the end
when I was, well, at the end. It arrived quickly, and we hopped over some logs
and slowly made our way out. Funny, I thought, - funny and great, - how those
dandelions can grow so tall and valorous without anyone or thing touching then,
- troubling them, hassling them, or hindering them. Some inner clock and
cadence and rule allows them to grow and thrive. Some cosmic force, Providence,
brings them up and keeps them there in the new summer shade and sun.
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