Beyond the Cut Grass onto a Path

Down a beaten path at the edge of our lawn, a winding and narrow pass through the woods made up of gullies and thickets that were just a stones throw from our back door. Jaunts that I would call a hike now seemed like aimless wondering then. From an early age I drifted onto that path to see what was beyond our yard. Usually finding a stick perfect for the journey, one that would sweep spider webs out of my path, and make idle noises to scare away the snakes, that were undoubtedly around and just out of sight. Warn stones marked the way, maples, pines, oaks , locusts and a score of other swaying trees painted the breeze in those days in that forest. "April showers bring May flowers," and that's the truth; deep in the forest where the light of day is a few shades darker and the smells and sounds are sharper and purer I saw some of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen in my life.


Past the pine tree on a knob hill, surrounded by a briar thicket - a protected watch tower - an imaginations dream this forest was. Just beyond there where the earth gave way to itself, a valley was dissected by a trickling creek that bubbled and passed the leaves from autumn's past to another location in another crook along the way. A rotting timber bridge that must have fallen twenty years before, a deteriorating bridge that fell in just the right place to let me pass over the high end of this stream. And even though an easier passage was just down the way a boy needs a bridge and that is all there is to it. Tiny shade loving wildflowers reared their heads in the spring time and few saw their beauty. A treasure for the single wonderer, and as the leaves crumbled beneath my sneakers my mind was too innocent to realize what I was experiencing. As the bird's calls echoed through that place untouched by time as if to say to me: "inhale this air child, this is your home."

Beyond the bubbling creek and the old access road made by lumber jacks who's graves were marked long before I pilfered there the squirrels practiced acrobatic acts in Sycamores and Birch trees. Barking to be tune of the next acorn falling to the forest floor only stopping to notice where I was and where I was going and in this memory I see more that I can explain. The greens and browns that inspired the idea of camouflage, a play ground for creatures that inspired glass menageries in lit curios tucked away in parlors with musty damask drapes and drop leaf tables. A place that brought validity to my Grandmother's Ray Harm prints…an untouched zoo that I knew it all too well.

Muddy sneakers and beggars lice were all souvenirs of the days adventure and with each stride there was something to be seen. As my mind drifts back there I realize that it is not only a place for me but a moment in time. A place just as sure as the world that could compare to the setting of "Where the Red Fern Grows," but I didn't know to appreciated it that way then and maybe that is good. With wide eyes and my trusty stick I walked longer and farther day by day searching for what was beyond that forest and I suppose I have found that out time and time again, over the years. And though my foot prints have been erased a million times and new things grow in their place I was there. I was on that path in those woods and I know that place like the back of my hand. Just beyond a gray house with white shudders I crossed winding paths while ground hogs scurried to nearby holes and mosquitoes buzzed. And now that I have seen what was beyond the forest I realize it's monumental significance. This that is a memory now may only be a brick in the foundation but that brick is there and an import part of the solid rock upon which I stand. When I look back there this morning I realize that I was walking through a portion of Heaven, a reminder of why the hunter takes to the field and the forest even though his table is already set. The reason is so apparent as to why the fisherman longs for the open water or the riverside. I now know why the hiker seeks the far off regions and the jetsetter must find a serene place to take a load off. And with another blink I see my the back of my father's canvas chaps covered in cuckoo barrows and beggars lice, following dogs all across the country side and I followed too, my stride downtrodden from the journey. I know why.

I never understood then the importance of the feeling. Tied up in my own ancient history I realize that these memories just beyond my old back door are worth more than a gold bar or a bag of pearls. If I live to be one hundred and memories dart in and out of my mind like bats in the moonlight - I hope my memory allows me to go back there. Back to the bubbling brook of my youth, back to the pine tree that became a lookout tower and even though I have jumped from one metaphor to another, this memory is as sound as the timber that creaks within it. Knowing all the while that Faulkner, Welty and Frost among others shared these memories - I mean really shared them. I know why. I know why because I too was there in the shade of natures ceiling, a place that housed as many living things as do the concrete jungles that dot the globe. I know why I go back there and I know why you do too. Beauty may be for the eye of the beholder, but beauty, whomever beholds it, is in escapable. And although I was not along a path that "diverged in the yellow wood," I speak that language.

One day I will return to that very place - it will be different then. It will have been the scene of another young boys paradise, I am confident in that. Like my father and his father and all those that go back into a line that can be drawn across the mountains and hills and then across the seas - deep within us all there is the sense of adventure. I pray that that sense is one within me that is never extinguished.