BY THE SWAYING MAGIC RED SUGAR TREES

In the far fields past the hidden valley and where the sky watches a wonderful mess of tree tops is where the hawk flies away back and back to an unknown home. There are feral animals that rustle and turn and take off back into the woods. Also, if you listen closely, certain birds call out to one another, - and what are they saying? - Where are you my friend? Come and see me. We will fly and eat of berries once we alight on the right branches. Perhaps they don’t say ‘alight. There was a small coyote that came running past the edges of there, and before he went into the wood, he stopped ever so briefly and looked back. Curious. Innocent. Spry. Kind of whimsical-dreamlike. Then he goes and disappears into the bushes, as quick as a bird, - a bird of the earth himself. Around there, but easy enough to miss are the swaying magic red sugar trees. They are not red, and they are not sugar-made, but they are there. Somehow they live just on the edge of the circular area where the tractors have gone to die. It’s the red small apple-like artifacts that wait on little stems,- these remind one of sugar for their look- not white,- but something better for I like to think they were painted red with a coating. And it’s not an elf or a gnome, a deva or anyone else, - but nature that did indeed paint them. So there they are waiting in the air, juxtaposed by the blue, safe for their good isolation, and swaying just a bit in the certain song of the wind. Watch them and watch them and watch them some more. They wait patiently and in time shall receive the rain and the snow and the blessings of new seasons.

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