IN THE LATE MORNING BREEZE OR THE CLOUDS PURE IN SPIRIT AND WITHOUT SIN

Something told me to venture out to my old stomping ground, the large fields. Its 64 hectares of openness and blue sky, with a forest around the perimeter. The air was cooler than it has been, and for this I and the dogs were grateful. A Canadian summer day, to me, is ideally about 25 degrees with a light breeze to keep you alert and refreshed, not 30 degrees, humid, with no air, and flies dropping out of mid flight and their souls departing into the heavenly realms. So it was like that. The morning crowd was not finished yet, and the lot was full of vehicles, but I navigated my way through and we began.

Soon enough, people had left, and it was noticed that the entire area belonged to us. It had been too long. It was like seeing and old friend. Why had I not thought of going back sooner? In any event, the verdant vines that grew on the far side fence were still there, boastful and exploding all over and up to the sky in a riotous display. The sun. Everything worshipped the sun. The bees buzzed ‘round flowers, little insects hid inside feral bushes and the dirt path led to the apple tree that was slowly but methodically and confidently bringing the apples to fruition. We stepped, at the end, off the treaded way, and went into the forest. There, the small path that exists was overgrown for the large rains of the season and little use. I didn’t see any Chaga, though I kept an eye, - but did enjoy the shade, the quietude, the idea that the path was not far off, and would be returned to in time…

There we went and there we go. A wind came. Loquacious.  The sky showed itself. Splashed with clouds, somehow kind, gracious. Their chaos has, against reason and logic, some kind of elegance. The clouds are pure in spirit and without sin. We remembered the ways, cellular memory as they call it and spiritual memory also. They were happy. We looked at some yellow flowers and some purple ones also. The raspberries have not bloomed yet but are getting ready to. There are some wild trees that grow about seven feet tall and seem tropical for their shapes and leaves. Dancing against the sky, juxtaposed and foiled for the blue, and we watch. A butterfly. A caterpillar. A sound in the distance. I remember the buttercups yellow in a marshy area nearby but don’t go, for it’s really thickly overgrown and still perhaps too early for the buttercups.

Down a hill and up a hill. So much to see. Worlds inside of worlds. I pause and see some strange

white flowers that grow in multitudes against and under and over themselves. There are a few purple growths in there also. The sun comes down and makes the leaves and stems and flowers themselves to cast wonderfully odd shadows on one another. That is a world there. Ants, insects, a few little grasshoppers. I take a few photographs of the flower world that lives by the tallest of wild grasses. Standing straighter, I stretch out and look around. Two birds, larger than black birds and smaller than hawks, are alighted on the top of a small tree close by. They watch, and then take off and go seamlessly, like a perfect poem. In an instant it’s like they never were there. I look around again and again at it all. Its picaresque and for an instant I wonder why the entire world is not rushing from all sides to see the bumpy field and its gifts and charms that sway ever so slightly in the late morning breeze.

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