Skipping Work
Susan and I are together again, back in the hills of Southeastern Ohio. Hills with deep, bedrock bones - bones of sandstone, ever wet. On top of them, a covering of thick flesh - unyielding clay, brown. The path darts in and out, a numbing undulation: back into the hollow, out and around the hillside, back again. Streams are trickling down. Soggy forest litter, squishes underfoot.
We're in an old pine stand listening to the trees. They're absolutely speaking to us in creaks, moans and whispers; tall pines, dead with spongy, rotten wood; half fallen over - one of them - and leaning against a live neighbor - so precarious. Susan and I become dramatic. We overemphasize the danger and run down the path, underneath the leaning pine. First, Susan and then myself. As one goes the other watches, smiling for the thrill of our game, but hoping against the unthinkable.
On goes the path, bending left and right, up and down. It takes us into deeper stands of pine, shady but warm and carpeted with green, woven tapestries. Fan Clubmoss (Diphasiastrum digitatum) slowly clones itself, creeping out on long runners buried just below the dead pine needles on the forest floor. "Like a strawberry," said Susan. She took the words out of my mouth.
Suddenly, time and space meld, and I see the creeping Clubmoss moving backwards inch by inch. I watch them shrink, following a long trail of them back through time. Entire years pass within a few seconds. I feel swept up in great feat of logical deduction, like Hubble imagining the Big Bang. They came from one point, but where? And even then: the gametophytes waiting in the soil, biding time with patience beyond my measure. How deceptive is all this! The pines are tall but grow quick, so are young. The Clubmoss is tiny, and grows slow; it is old - at least by one measure. The rocks, the bones of this land are older still. The Earth itself is older than human thought, but is only a tiny fraction of the Great Energy contained in this universe. I can imagine universes so slowly creeping on long runners: each galaxy, a gametophyte; each Earth, an atom; each person, an electron; each thought a cosmic string, an unexplainable force - at least unexplainable in the now walking in the forest with Susan. Perhaps someday our minds will move through space and time as easily as we move through a thought.
A thought, and only that. It's gone in an instant, like the flash of white from a deer's upturned tail. Two of them, actually, one large and one small. I had seen their prints on the trail on our way out, and we are lucky to catch them browsing in the pines on our way back. Susan and I regress now, tracing our own journey through space back to its start. We're headed to her car and into town, Athens.
Our time together is at an end. She goes back down south (she's gone by the time you read this), and I go back to work, soon to follow her to new pine forests among hills with dry, red flesh, baked and dusty. The same old bones. The same old love. Days made for skipping work.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Here's some notable blogs I found while researching this article. Please check them out:
Ecology of Appalachia
Seabrook Leckie
Town and Country Gardens
We're in an old pine stand listening to the trees. They're absolutely speaking to us in creaks, moans and whispers; tall pines, dead with spongy, rotten wood; half fallen over - one of them - and leaning against a live neighbor - so precarious. Susan and I become dramatic. We overemphasize the danger and run down the path, underneath the leaning pine. First, Susan and then myself. As one goes the other watches, smiling for the thrill of our game, but hoping against the unthinkable.
On goes the path, bending left and right, up and down. It takes us into deeper stands of pine, shady but warm and carpeted with green, woven tapestries. Fan Clubmoss (Diphasiastrum digitatum) slowly clones itself, creeping out on long runners buried just below the dead pine needles on the forest floor. "Like a strawberry," said Susan. She took the words out of my mouth.
Suddenly, time and space meld, and I see the creeping Clubmoss moving backwards inch by inch. I watch them shrink, following a long trail of them back through time. Entire years pass within a few seconds. I feel swept up in great feat of logical deduction, like Hubble imagining the Big Bang. They came from one point, but where? And even then: the gametophytes waiting in the soil, biding time with patience beyond my measure. How deceptive is all this! The pines are tall but grow quick, so are young. The Clubmoss is tiny, and grows slow; it is old - at least by one measure. The rocks, the bones of this land are older still. The Earth itself is older than human thought, but is only a tiny fraction of the Great Energy contained in this universe. I can imagine universes so slowly creeping on long runners: each galaxy, a gametophyte; each Earth, an atom; each person, an electron; each thought a cosmic string, an unexplainable force - at least unexplainable in the now walking in the forest with Susan. Perhaps someday our minds will move through space and time as easily as we move through a thought.
A thought, and only that. It's gone in an instant, like the flash of white from a deer's upturned tail. Two of them, actually, one large and one small. I had seen their prints on the trail on our way out, and we are lucky to catch them browsing in the pines on our way back. Susan and I regress now, tracing our own journey through space back to its start. We're headed to her car and into town, Athens.
Our time together is at an end. She goes back down south (she's gone by the time you read this), and I go back to work, soon to follow her to new pine forests among hills with dry, red flesh, baked and dusty. The same old bones. The same old love. Days made for skipping work.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Here's some notable blogs I found while researching this article. Please check them out:
Ecology of Appalachia
Seabrook Leckie
Town and Country Gardens
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