There is a path passing through a mountain meadow cold that shines in the early sun after a fresh dusting of snow. I walk there and think of how I have known weeping in sorrow like the willow and quaked with inner fear like the aspen. I consider how I’ve been blue as a spruce, too rigid at times like the goldenrod, and pondered like the pine. Yet, I know also I have wandered in the wild like a prairie rose, risen with the sun like the flower and tried to be wise like the sage. In the end I feel grateful for the many times life has been sweet like the corn or smooth like the sumac and that I have known love like the grass.