Providence of Flora

 

The powerful wind storm that had oddly enough no rain or dark clouds to accompany it blew down several forest trees. One in particular was really something to see today, the day after such a storm. It must have been four to six feet around, and at least forty, but possibly fifty feet or more in height. I saw it on the upper ridge, where I walk along the top of the valley before descending into such. I slowly looked around it and then looked inside. It was hollow. I wonder what creatures, if any, had lived there. I took a few photographs. A piece of sunlight drifted in from a crack in the top. I admired the dusty dirt, the air in there, the formations, the wood, the smell, the world that was inside there. Maybe there were even spirits of some sort that lived in the tree. Other than that, we walked along far and wide as it were, - to the forest that waits over a large flaxen hill with a blue sky above. Then, to the fields, - surveying the old tractors, one tree in particular, trying to be careful around the bog and marsh and little creek that goes through. I didn’t see any snakes, and for this I was surprised. Sometimes it is a joy to see a new feral flower, a bit of strange verdant growth on a tree, an old pine cone or series of such, a new spring butterfly, or even a woodland moth. I went down to where the little bridge is. Someone has repaired some missing wood, some rotted out wood. I listened to the smallest waterway make a sound. The air there is somehow clean and away from the greater world. That wind. That storm. That strange and peculiar and forceful artifact of nature. It had thrown several branches around, and made a mess everywhere. Interesting to muse that the forest is in a way clean or an organized mess, meaning the paths are clean from walking and for walking. Even the little ones, and then the almost hidden ones. Not this day, no. Mother Nature herself had shaken things up. Pine needles, pebbles, trees, - all everywhere, where they otherwise weren’t or would not be. I don’t know what it’s like in other places, - Northern California, Russia, Egypt. But I do like to think I know that corner of the world, - that forest. Well, there is always something undiscovered. It is there, be it a wonderfully odd boulder with intricate lines and markings on it, - a piece of Chaga mushroom all the harvesters ethical and otherwise have missed, or simply a flower, - growing, thriving, finding a shard of sun through some providence of flora, and growing alone, upright, robust, colorful, unique, let’s say blue and orange with a splash of something like light green. It’s covered with light and its own aura and the greater spring forest afternoon.