Trails and Tales Contest Writing First Place Winner
Nature enchants me.
But I am not a birder.
Nor a stargazer.
Nor a leaf-ologist.
I looked for poetry
in all of these.
I was eluded.
And then I found it—
a charming cadence—
In the Heart of My Tree
I read in fascination of the naturalist studying leaves and ants and badgers. Not me, not me. I run from badgers and shiver at ants. Leaves—yes, they are pretty, and I admire beauty. But—is this a red birch leaf or an aspen? Not me, not me. Even the true and proper names of pine and evergreen elude me.
“That pine over there—”
“Actually,” says Dad, “that’s a cedar.”
Oh.
Maybe stargazing would hit me with more luck. “Is that the Little Dipper?” I don’t know, but I watch in awe as the meteors dart across the sable sheet. Ah, marvelous! I count seventy-three falling stars. Maybe I am a night naturalist.
The next morning my neighbor says, “Did you see meteors last night?”
“Oh, yes! I saw—”
“I saw one hundred and seventy-three,” he informs me calmly, as if seeing that many meteors were common fare.
Oh.
Not a stargazer, not me.
I sadly listen as the storyteller expounds on taking nature walks—“so many things to see! Lots of birds and animals!”
Maybe? Maybe I would be a hiker?
Intrigued and overcome with longing, I take to the woods one afternoon. Storybook fashion, it will be extraordinarily peaceful; I snatch up poetry on my way out the door.
Ah, this is peaceful—not a noisy truck, nor goat, nor child. Leafy fingers stretch to the heavens. Soft royalties line the ground.
“Chck. Chck!”
My first bird! Now I know the charm of the forests. But where is that bird? Diligently as a birder, I tilt myself to peer up. No bird. I twist north and I twist south—no bird.
“Okay, then, bird. I give up.”
Awkwardly I haul myself up onto a sturdy arm close to the ground. I scramble a notch higher. Just like giant people, these trees, I think to myself, delighted at the poetry in the thought.
“Chck. Chck. Chck.”
That bird again. I crane carefully east. Then west. Over there I see a chipmunk. No! A squirrel, bush waving at me. He leans backward like a little man and jerks forward. “Chck.”
Oh. My bird.
“Chck. Chck. Chck.”
Birder? Not me, not me.
Half grimly, I open my pages. Ah, lovely cadence—thrilling imagery. I let the pages drift shut, soaring into the world of artful poetry. I lean against the belly of my tree.
Wait.
A gentle whispering, gushing stream reverberates in my ear.
Wait!
Can trees make sounds? The bark bends my ear. Again, the silent roar—no, it’s real! A true, gushing river is flowing inside this tree. The poetry of that stream burns awe into my soul.
“Kaaarreenn…” The call breaks the enchantment of the past moments and I jump, crashing to the ground.
Poetry. In my ear I hear the rushing, swirling whisper.
Finally, I have found a poem in nature. It has not dashed out to surprise me. It has not splashed across the sky. But where I did not look, I found it. In the heart of my tree.