Where Am I?

A brief hike beckons, in a sunny late morning, in one of the best parts of the year. Mid-October and it’s so warm it’s even warm in the shade. Time is getting short until winter comes down hard; this might be the last 70-degree day until April. And Cumulus clouds usually fill in after lunch. So now is all I have. Carpe Diem.

The forest, becoming more spacious every day, has a bright golden glow. A soft wind blows and yellow leaves waltz in the air, displaying no hurry to reach their final resting places. Maple, beech, ash, and birch have taken on the colors of the low sun. Butterscotch and pineapple, honey and lemon–a deciduous dessert. My steps crunch in the thick carpet of fallen leaves, now caramel and cinnamon hues. Yes, the anthropomorphic similes can get thick around here; must be the absence of chlorophyll. Not only is the woodland becoming empty of foliage, it’s also losing the scents (musty, sweet, tart, bitter) that enrich summer. And the sounds. Half the birds have left, along with their songs and calls. Occasionally an acorn drops; the sharp “crack” as it hits a branch above makes me wince.

Blue jays bellyache, a titmouse frets. More anthropomorphism on my part–birds can’t help how they sound. Many other lives surround me in secret. Crickets continue to saw away. Wooly bears and many other creatures negotiate the leaves, looking for places to generate antifreeze and hibernate. While heading upstream, a ripple in the brook announces that my silhouette has been spotted by a cautious fish. Maybe rare Salvelinus Fontinalis, “trout of the fountains”, he of the red, blue, and yellow spots, irregular green ground, orange fins with a slash of bold white. I’ll never know, though. He’s gone.

This is the time of year when a trail disappears except for the blazes on trees. One needs to pay attention. And much of this little preserve is rough hiking. The sloping dirt road feels like the bed of a washed-out river. Roots, tussocks and moss-covered rocks abound throughout the streamside trail. I should have brought my staff.

The hillside of Bracken ferns is dried and brown, but backlit Mountain Laurel gleams like the sun on a river. Did Joshua see and hear these same things? And give them misapplied human thoughts and actions?  It’s easy to imagine that not much has changed during the thousands of years this was part of a Native American thoroughfare, these woods going on and on and on, a footpath from Cape Cod to Cahokia.

In my case, an hour’s stroll ends with a dancing and dipping Monarch butterfly, maybe the last one. Will her reborn genes make it to Mexico to rest in a tree over the winter?  An even longer trail to follow, and an invisible one. Thickening clouds now hurry by south to north, ahead of a cold front. The wind is picking up. Things have changed in an hour. I’m lucky, enjoying the last of fall’s dessert courses, and I give it ten stars, a glowing recommendation. Which Joshua’s Trust property am I exploring?

~George Jacobi