Hope

Sunset Near Fish Creek - September 2024

​The chill wind touches my skin and I zip up my jacket to my chin. Charcoal clouds hover heavy above. I’m on my favorite trail, possibly for the last time this season. The damp air fills my nostrils, bringing the scent of fir and spruce, of dark brown leaves mashed into thick coffee mud. Foliage that was lush green and bright purple, white, yellow and pink blooms in the summer, then earthy orange and red and gold splendor in the fall, has now given way to naked trunks and branches. The starkness has its own beauty: trees and undergrowth unashamedly and unapologetically unadorned. What you see is what you get. 

I’m well into my time on the trail and suddenly am aware of the silence. There is no birdsong. I wonder if something has happened, if it is the wrong time of day, if the birds have given up and flown away. Then I see a golden beam break through the grey sky. With that show of sunlight, the song starts, birds trilling up and down scale, song that is light, melodic, and uplifting. 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
-Emily Dickinson