Author: wapatangawilds

A quiet early Fall morning, grasses gone to seed shining in the softer sunlight, the season like life  is moving on, and I am pulled along, but this morning it feels gentle, not rough and ragged as life too often seems to be, I wrap this morning’s softness around me like a blanket of kindness around my shoulders protecting me from the cold of hardness, I brush past a sunflower at my elbow, I see a few cottonwood leaves turned yellow, a breeze dances through me, I’m looking to be filled by nature’s ways, letting it’s silence sound within me, letting a sigh of needed relief flow through me, touched by the light and the first changing of color in the leaves. 

Walking past an aster wishing time would pass faster as I am trying to get to September and all those months of er, when the days grow shorter, the months of brr when nights get cooler, heading to Winter, so much to look forward to, the leaves changing color, first the Aspen and Sumac then finally the Cottonwood.  I want to stand among falling leaves as they swirl and they twirl, I want to walk on leaves that have fallen, there’s something about their colors on the ground that astound, they quiet me, internally, I imagine myself bending to pick up a leaf and hold it in my fingers, and that helps as summer lingers and then I wonder maybe it is not a good idea to ever wish time would go fast, when each moment in time is so quickly and forever past.

First day of September, again, season turning round the bend, I sit on a log, pondering the drama, listening, feeling, wondering, so many leaves to fall, as I sit in the green, pondering, how time charges on, pays no attention to whether I stop or not, yet stop I must, try to embrace the moments that easily slip away, and then I observe a shadow of a leaf on a leaf, and though I can’t explain why it brings a feeling of relief, a moment of light, before I, like time, move on.

A heavy rain in August eases the summer’s heated strain, giving hope for a forgiving Fall, until magic fills the winter sky and though still no change of color in even a single leaf, my reaction to the August rain is relief, while purple stars blaze or maybe I should say lavender, so many simple wonders amaze, I walk on the soft side in the shade. I see tracks of a deer, seedheads of Big Bluestem and Indiangrass appear, I sit by a ground squirrel and a Queen Anne’s lace curl,  I see hummingbirds hovering and trout rising in a lost lake I am rediscovering, it’s a time for ripening chokecherries and wild plum, when hungry bears will come, when blue flax is gone, gone to seed and goldenrod too will soon on its way proceed and finally I see another first frost, one week before September that brings to mind other first frosts I still remember.

Third day of August on a mountain trail, paused on a flat to let my heart catch up with me, a hummingbird sounds off so near, sun coming up to the rear, on the trail ahead peeks a deer, there’s a certain feeling that I get in a wilderness, yes of course there’s a feeling of wild but also there’s a gentleness, a connection to the naturalness of being alive that is so much more than just a feeling of needing to survive

Aspen and conifer, daisies and yarrows, and I find myself thinking of tomorrows, not just the day after today but all those beyond and in that mental mode I wander on, find myself climbing a hill of Aspen trees with leaves in the breeze shaking, quaking, til in a spot of shade at the top of the hill I stop, sit down  and am still, and for awhile though I cannot say exactly how, in my mind  there is only now, I feel no restless urge to stir sitting in a forest of Aspen next to a conifer. 

Sitting in a forest off a trail in the shade of pine watching humans walk or run by on occasion, makes me feel like a forest animal watching with curious eye as they go, some going to, some going fro, some alone and silent some in pairs or groups making loud mouth noises as I sit with the longtime resident rocks and trees enjoying a gentle breeze, what is interesting is if the humans looked my way, they would see me, but they don’t, they only look their way, they only look where they are going and none of them stops, moving on by me without knowing

Full moon on my shoulder, morning couldn’t get much colder, on my way to the sky, to be with me, past stream fountains glowing, from mountains flowing, leaving behind the why, going to where I can sit and walk, let nature talk, and I just listen, only questions are, will there be Wallflowers in bloom, will there be moose and Marsh Marigold, will I feel old?

Sitting in the woods, away from the material goods, feeding on nature’s diet of quiet, early in June, flowers blooming, bees zooming, birds sing, squirrels chatter, but those sounds do not shatter, they are part of the quiet, they do not clatter with insistence, I welcome them without resistance, there is a gracefulness in the forms of the leaves and flowers, a gentility, in the petals a fragility, and yet resilient, persistent and somehow it reminds me… of me, and in that thought I find comfort.

A tree stands apart, as do I, in a mountain bog, in a mountain fog, it is the first day of June, the mountains still singing a snowy tune, I hear the sounds of water flow beneath the snow, in it flows hope of renewal, of survival, of revival, it will quench a dry land’s thirst, from it life will burst, it’s nutrients will feed a new generation of seed, and though today I carry a sadness of knowing too many carry a never ending sorrow, standing here alone, leaning my back against an eroding stone, I dare to hope that in time, life can fertilize a better tomorrow