FOREST

It wasn’t exactly glum there but yes, a bit so. It had not snowed in days, and there was not rain either. What it was, was that the sky, well, it was covered by clouds and the clouds, opaque as such things tend to be, were just staying around forever. It must have been five days long and was continuing. Shouldn’t it snow by then, by now by some time? How I longed to see the real snow fall, when there is a darkness in the distance in the middle of the day for the storm that is approaching, and then it comes and is sprinkled everywhere like a song that is ubiquitous and continuous. The pictures I could get! - If even for me or a few other souls, a few sympathetic eyes or ears as it were. The snow as I remember it sits on every branch and can be undisturbed, well- leaving some of it there even if the wind comes. There are parts of that place so pristine, so untouched on a daily basis anyhow. Like a kid waiting for a vacation, I can’t wait, - because there has been a re-direction, a new configuration, a re-assembly of the soul- and I can see the magic, the dare I say, and not lightly, - the divinity in the everyday. Mostly there, mostly there. For now there were a few

hawks that I saw watching and we took a strange downwards and meandering way that led first to a little bridge with moss and some parts repaired. The water could be heard, but slightly and lowly in volume, - but heard, trickling either down from somewhere or to somewhere again. There, the trees and their branches made strange shapes like they were ghosts caught still in the day, remaining frozen to fool you or me,- the intrusive walker. I half-expected one to come alive, to begin talking, but such things really are only found in fairytales. Yet, - didn’t they say their own thing in their own peculiar way? I am not talking about divination, pendulums, rocks, and the rest, - though those things have their place. Here what is being mentioned is that the trees talk the way the whole earth communicates. And there talk was that they were middle age, quiet, had seen some things, and could see much at night. What is the night like there, by the little bridge and the surrounding area? Everyone has surely gone home, and the thick darkness kisses everything at once. I can see the trees though, even through the thick darkness, in my mind’s eye? Why? Because of the moonlight, - a moonlight that appears briefly during a break in the clouds. The trees are intricate and scattered to begin with, but in that play of light there mystery is pronounced, vivid, and poem-like. In any event, - it is not bad there, not exactly glum like I said, as the snow is waited for and counted on. After a while, we shall probably be sick of it, no? - That is the way of things. But,- first we shall be enthralled and perhaps as we negotiate a hill or descend down a valley path a fox or deer will run just down or up the way, having be stirred by our presence or else just on its way anyhow through the snow laden forest ways.

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