A walk through the woods felt like a scavenger hunt. It is spring in Michigan, and hope is bursting from trees and earth; the promise of the future.
I searched for treasures with my cameras, which (in my imagination) were glad to be freed from their winter captivity and desired to capture everything. I wanted to share the mood of a forest on an afternoon in early May.
I discovered it was comfortably similar to my Rhode Island memories, but a different landscape from my home in Florida this time of year. The forest felt hopeful, yet melancholy. She whispered in the rustling leaves, “Be patient, walk slowly, and see.”
And so, I saw treasures. Moss and buds, daffodils enjoying their last days, and tree blooms opened to the warm sun as the clouds suddenly parted.
My footsteps sounded small as the birds sang across the canopy of branches. I was part of the earth, the light, and the sounds of life.
I was melancholy yet hopeful. The patience of nature is my friend.
Shelley
There’s a sad loneliness about my heart,—
A deep, deep solitude the spirit feels
Amid this multitude. The things of art
Pall on the senses—from its pageantry,
Loathing, my eye turns off; and my ear shrinks
From the harsh dissonance that fills the air.
My soul is growing sick—I will away
And gather balm from a sweet forest walk!
There, as the breezes through the branches sweep,
Is heard aerial minstrelsy, like harps
Untouched, unseen, that on the spirit’s ear
Pour out their numbers till they lull to peace
The tumult of the bosom. There’s a voice
Of music in the rustling of the leaves;
And the green boughs are hung with living lutes,
Whose strings will only vibrate to his hand
Who made them, while they sound his untaught praise!
The whole wild wood is one vast instrument
Of thousand, thousand keys; and all its notes
Come in sweet harmony, while Nature plays
To celebrate the presence of her God!
