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Seen As Through Water or Glass
Kira Howe
21 Oct 2003
It must have been three or four summers ago that we crossed the road south of the Daffodil House and up onto the freshly-logged property on the other side. Several of our neighbors had sold their trees that year for paper and lumber. Near the top of the hill, where the forest remained untouched, we found the path. It was beaten earth, as wide as an ordinary driveway, marked here and there with humans' and horses' footprints - and seemingly endless.
The image stays with me. Not because it was an especially interesting or exciting day, or a joyous one, although there was a unique joy in traveling that path. The memory now has the quality of a dream. We were happy, but there was no explanation, no background, to that happiness. On either side of us the forest lay, and we knew not how deep it was, and under our feet, the mysterious path. We had no idea where we were going and could scarcely remember where we had come from, and it was wonderful.
Another image comes to me from time to time, of a large and weedy lawn, and the many swaying forms of pine trees towering overhead on all sides. There is a young sycamore tree standing alone in their shadow, looking already like it might be the ancestor of a hundred other trees. And higher than any of them, a cold, clear sky, from whence the moon looks down in helpless sympathy.
I do not see myself standing beneath that sky, but I know I was there.
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