Ten Years of Old Floors

Ten years of old pine floors and wavy windows
that let the outside in,
secrets held in unknown histories.
Walls that were, doorways gone.
Rooms and roof lines gained and lost, 
mysteries beyond unraveling.

The marsh is clothed in browns and tans,
as when we first arrived,
muted promise of discovery.
The years have changed it.
Populations of cattails, wild rice and jewelweed
jockey for position.
Like life itself, 
never static.

Ten years taller are the trees. 
Sycamores and yellow poplar scrape the sky,
long-fingered twigs stretching toward the clouds,
beech and holly growing together in community,
thin places where the Divine stoops low. 
Yet some are gone, 
remembered only by fallen remains, 
ghosts among the living, 
reminders of an earlier time.
I miss them.

For ten years we have been gifted.
Gifted with an old house with old pine floors, 
by trees and fields, woodlands and water;
Gifted by life itself, 
and ten years of memories,
of blessings and of growth.
Ten years of gratitude.

Life and Death and Orange Jewels

My husband's 94 year old mother died last week, a sad and difficult woman in life and in death. I am weary and so this morning I needed the woodland's embrace and there I found the refreshment and the solace I knew were waiting for me. I went looking for life, life in all its fullness, life of the forest floor - creatures, plants, fungi...all of it. 

On the short bank beside the woodland road, I came across a colony of tiny, bright orange mushrooms, themselves feeding on decaying matter...matter that is no longer alive, but giving life to these jewels of the forest. 

And in the distance, stood what first appeared to be a lone white mushroom... 

... standing like a single sentry guarding its place in the leaf litter. 

However, upon closer inspection, I realized that I had almost stepped on its nearly invisible companion of a different species, a couple of feet away. 

Two different species of fungi, quietly going about the work they were given to do, decomposing fallen leaves and branches, returning nutrients to the soil. Perhaps their mychorriza mysteriously co-mingle beneath the duff as they coil around tree roots, providing the giants greater access to needed water and minerals and a means of communication, tree to tree.

I have been thinking about death during these last few weeks and about its effect on those who are left behind, for death is never a solitary event. If we give ourselves to its effect, even in our agitation and deep sense of loss, over time we will be deepened and made acutely aware of and sensitive to that which is still alive...still alive in us, in those we care about, in the order of the natural world. I find the encouragement of God in the life of the fungi, strange as that might seem at first glance. They demonstrate that there is far more to each individual than what might be visibly recognized. Though their above-ground fruiting bodies wither away in due time, their life continues on in mystery, hidden away in where they can no longer be seen. And, because of fungi's role, though individual plants and creatures die, their life is never completely ended, for it is always recycled for the well being of another.  

In this season of coming face to face, again, with the reality of death I am reminded, again, of the abundance of life and my grateful participation in it. 

In the Company of Beeches

Beneath the canopy of giants, young and older beeches fill the understory along the trail that runs to the river.
Everywhere, warm tans soften the gray of this raw and rainy winter day, persistent dry leaves whispering in the wind, 

fallen ones cushioning the raindrops that patter against the forest floor.

Great craggy white oaks soar skyward, golden-crowned kinglets and nuthatches searching the loose bark for hidden grubs and overwintering insects.

Mosses skirt the yellow poplars' flanged bases, creeping like fuzzy green stockings along the massive trees' long and winding toes.

Above, red-headed woodpeckers work the dead trees and yellow-bellied sapsuckers the live ones.

Food for all, near at hand, free for the finding.

Below, throngs of white-throats forage in the duff layer beneath the shrubs, disguised in the dry leaves, darting to and fro, like so many winged mice, too intent on their quest to notice me.

Oh, to be a member of this quiet, enfolding community, surrounded by unpretentious beauty in all seasons...roots entwined, branches interlaced, mysterious communication beneath the earth-one species to another, no awareness of the human folly beyond its borders.

Like the imaginary dwellings of my childhood, secret spaces beneath sweeping branches, hidden from the rest of the world, the sanctuary to which I turn when in turmoil...

Peace in the company of beeches.

Promise Obscured

Barren trees and frozen ground, interlacing grays and browns surrounding.
Dormancy with hidden promise, not yet expectation. Too early for swelling buds or coloring twigs. The coldest and deepest sleep is yet to come.
Silence.
Then... tapping, rattling, rustling debris falling from above, curtain of brown powder against the winter sky and branches. Life, after all.

Leaden sky, lifeless amber stalks as far as the eye can see. Low tide, expanse of mud and muck mostly, uncompromising honesty of what is, at the bottom of the marsh.
No illusions of abundance nor reflections of fullness, here.
Instead, crusted icy tributaries, like the tentacles of God winding through this
broken and unsuspecting world,
snake through the mire, unappreciated life-source.

Standing still, unmoving, unnoticed behind dried rushes
in the pale light.
A grey lump, inanimate, dead-stump like, invisible
until a single ray of sunlight reflects back from the white in his face and the gleam in his eye.
Suddenly there. Suddenly, "Oh, of course! How could I not see him,"
even as the sun retreats and he is returned to obscurity.
Sureness questioned...Alive, nonetheless.

Advent.

Kinship

It was the bite of a newly harvested, Pennsylvania apple that brought me back to my senses. Sweet and tart, spicy and juicy, spark of gratitude amidst the chaos of swirling emotions, acknowledgement of what hasn’t changed.

Christmas fern on the bank up the road, the golden glow of beeches-reminiscent of Lothlorien, chickadee voices that sing all year and that brave, young roadside mullein plant, fuzzily growing taller and trying its best to beat the clock and bloom before the coming freeze.

The robins are here, voices ringing through the woodlands, taking in temporary offerings as they find them, nourishment from holly and bittersweet berries. And I? Where is my temporary nourishment, as needed in this moment? Like them, I ask only for the now, for a way to go on, trusting that when today’s provision is gone, I will be shown tomorrow’s.

It is cold and gray, this morning. I walk, damp and chilled but, driven onto the trails for the warmth of fellowship with disrobing trees, discarded leaves, and the old giants now being whittled to dust by beaks and beetles. The predictable presence of red-headed woodpeckers still surprises me, the prize of many a birder from far away. I can relax here, as their rattling invites me into a world devoid of human social turmoil, but replete with an abundance of grubs in the beaver and borer-killed trees that dot this landscape.

I hear them coming before I can see them, a doe and spike buck moving steadily through the trees, their coats exactly the same color as the bare trunks and branches, more effectively camouflaged than in summer. Close enough for me to read the expression in their eyes, they pause, smelling and wondering, and then, with a bolt, they are gone, vanishing back into the woodlands, beyond sight and sound.

Along the river, I find human fellowship, after all. An older gentleman carrying a long-distance lens watches and waits, dawdling as slowly as I. “There is a lot to see,” I say. “I can only go a few steps at a time before stopping again.” He smiles and nods, “Yes. That’s the way to do it.”
Sometimes, camaraderie comes unexpectedly.

Song sparrows rustle covertly in the thickets, singing improvisational songs and muttering to themselves in the underbrush as I become aware of feet, pattering towards me. Two squirrels, engrossed in aggressive pursuit and heedless of my presence until a few feet away suddenly startle, turn and scamper back from whence they came. 

“Well! What next?” I wonder.

I turn towards home through woodlands still awash in yellow and orange, at peace now, as I haven’t been in days, seven to be exact. One of the ever-present but often-hidden hermit

thrushes teases with its wheezy invitation as I gaze on new evidence that the beavers are back and once again at work.

I have found the temporary nourishment I needed, nourishment to engage the day, to examine my fears, to be grateful for what is, even as I act to change what can be changed. I am of two minds as I look around me, grateful for the moment, anxious for what might come.

Of course all is not lost…Not yet, anyway.