one path in our woods

I need to take a walk in the woods and see a box turtle blending artfully with fallen leaves. Or, looking off the trail, spot a lion’s mane fruiting on a dying oak. If it is early morning, the deer will stand still, unnoticed until unnerved by my nearness, then explode into action, bounding in long strides and leaping the barbed wire fence in the middle of the woods, at the base of the long ridge bordering the farm’s eastern edge.

My steps will retrace the tread of my own Camino, one that curves not across Spain but through the 20-acre wood to the back pastures. It will be peacefully quiet, my steps unnoticed in the damp leaves. Little flurries in a hickory, off to my left, will reveal the presence of a squirrel, scampering muted by distance. It will pause as it detects my passing and call with a series of barks to all other of its kin within hearing. If I were there.

There, not here, where I’m staring out a window at two cars, two trucks, two tractors, facing a never-ending to-do list of late fall tasks.

Here, where all the conversations about ballot counts, when this or that investigation might be concluded, stock market fluctuations, Netflix releases, the demise of brick and mortar retail, wheel taxes, state taxes, food taxes, special status, unspecial status, working classes, elites, middle classes, football, basketball, baseball, iPhone updates (now and again this evening), new laptop, new, new, new, more, more, more … seem inadequate and a grotesque sideshow to what this world has on offer.

If I could just crumple the to-do list for the day, put off butchering the ducks for customers, not thin the turnip greens in the hoop-house, not move the pigs to the woods, would I use the time well?

I need to take a walk to the top of the hill at midnight, smell the approaching winter, smile at the distant lights of a neighbor’s farm, hear the sounds of our farm as the coyote passing through the fenceline hears them; to crunch the frost underfoot, see the achingly clear sky and stars overhead; to clear the mind, open the heart and the soul to the majestic, reject the mundane of our meager achievements.

I need to take a walk.

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Reading this weekend: Highway of the Sun (Von Hagen): an account of an expedition to trace the Incan highways.