Pine

I can either write about pining for the past or about passing through the pines. That's what I've got to work with.

So today I worked a ten hour shift at my dining room table using a computer and a phone to communicate with people who find themselves in pretty terrible circumstances. I took a break at about 1:00 PM to get the mail. I could smell that early Spring scent that arrives when the Earth is just beginning to open and I didn't want to go back to my table. 

When the shift was over, I took a walk. There's a mighty oak at the junction of two dirt roads out there where I've been going lately. I think of it as a friendly traffic cop and always convey my regards as I walk by. Keep going straight or make a right?  

I guess I'll go straight this time. But before I could take ten steps, an owl called out from the swamp behind me. I turned, stood, and listened while trying to spot it. It called out again from a little further down that right turn I decided against. Ok then, change of plan. We go right. 

I climbed a hill and went past some more great oaks. Four of them, very old. Next to them is a charred hollow stump. One of their clan. Something tragic happened here somewhere down the years. I feel it every time I come up here. 

I watched a crow in last year's dead grass watching me. The field came to and end at the top of the hill, and the cart road shrunk to single track at the tree line. I've never walked this trail before. A mild excitement came over me. 

The trail took me up and over another hill, down the opposite slope strewn with mossy green boulders, and into the valley below. Tall pines and mountain laurel. Darker here with a close in quiet feel. The smell of the last remnants of snow down in the recesses beneath the pines. There's something holy here. Stop and take it in. I looked up through the branches to the fading light and just stood there for awhile. 

I don't know where this trail goes, and it's time to turn around now, but I want to keep going. One of these days I'll carry my bed on my back and just go.