Hello, friends!
Unlike with the Doors of Moria, when the Fellowship in the The Lord of the Rings seek to enter the mines, there is no secret pass code for finding peace, happiness, love, any of those things. However, I find all those emotions exist at once, in your grasp, if you step out your door and let your feet take you into nature.
Not just a park in the city. Though if that’s all that’s near, it will do, but if you can get out into a trail where the only sound comes from the rustle of leaves in the wind or the rush of water over rocks, then you’ve gone a step further.
Either way, nature provides solace from the spinning doors of the modern world. Nature reminds us where we came from. Out of the dirt, tall and hopeful, looking to the sun and the moon and dreaming further.
As often happens, I created the above image off a moment I captured while hiking trails around Campbell River, a city just outside of Vancouver in British Columbia. I caught a pair of friends just floating along in their canoe and added a splash of faerie dust, the sort that is always there, but we cannot see with our naked eyes, unless we imagine it is that which sparkles in the sun, off the tips of ferns on the forest floor. It is there for your belief, in the solace of nature.
And we, as walkers through this nature, must do all we can to protect it. It was here before us, it will be here after us. It is our duty as the current occupants to respect the peace and happiness it provides.
Hello, friend. Farewell.
The wind runs with the air
in a silence slip of a blanket,
cast over the shoulders. As shadows
prickle like drops of ice, scattered
across skin. Reminding of the winter days,
when crystals move across glass
in a mirror of the phases of the moon.
The stars rise with the night’s blanket,
tucking the sun to sleep. Whispering strawberry syrups.
In the dark, dreams walk among us, looking for a friend.
Until a bell from cities beyond, clangs the midnight hour,
light rises in a cloud of sparrows. They pull back the blanket,
the sun wakes. A new day says hello.
The cycle turns, fidgets at dusk and dawn,
when the world stands, caught in silence.
A question, will you love me still?
It takes solace in the seekers, who push back fortunes
for the riches of leaves tinkling on a breeze.
The wind runs with the air, turns the wheel.
The sun points, bows and fades.
The moon steps away, bows and falls.
Farewell, they say to another.
Until next time, I come ’round again.
