"Go to the winter woods: listen there, look, watch, and “the dead months” will give you a subtler secret than any you have yet found in the forest." - Fiona Macleod, Where the Forest MurmursI love the bare beauty of the woods in winter. The stark branches silouetted against the sky, the blanket of leaves that covers the forest floor, the quiet that fills the air. At a glance, everything is brown and gray, dead, lifeless, but if you open your eyes, the woods are still full of color and sound and beauty.
Today 3 deer bounded into the trees at my approach, white tails flicking as they jumped out of sight. A tiny chipmunk skittered across the trail to avoid my feet. A hawk keened from high in the trees, and a single owl hooted in the distance.
Color filled the woods when I opened my eyes and looked beyond the gray branches and piles of moist leaves. A tree stump blackened from a bolt of lightning stood broken at the edge of the woods, bright orange fungi decorated a fallen branch, brilliant red rocks scattered across the trail, soft green moss clung to the roots of a tree, golden clumps of wood shone through a broken tree limb.
A perfect winter run.
2 comments:
Beautiful.
Thank you!
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