The Trail West of Amen Lake.

I was heading down a new trail I had
never walked before.
The spring air was crisp and it reddened my cheeks.
My boots mushed softly into decomposing leaves.
Speckles of green dotted the treeline, bringing
the maple and the elm and the poplar back to life.
The sky held an emerald blue.
As I walked through, something felt out of place.
I focused my eyes and took another look around.
Something was amiss.
The smallest twitch of movement, a slash of black
against gray bark as I stared down.
A baby fawn glanced up at me.
The brown of its eyes like chocolate
in a bowl of cream.
I looked at it for a long time.
And it looked at me.
I let out a small laugh as there came a stomp in the
distance.
Out through the woods,
I could see the doe.
She snorted and stomped her hoof.
I nodded and continued along the trail.

With my hands stuffed into my pockets,
I took in all the woods had to offer.
The pale moss forming on northern bark
near the forest floor. The rich smell of earth
that transformed the air each time my boots shuffled
the leaves below. The moaning trees that spoke
when the wind rustled them so.

I straddled an old pine that had fallen between the crotch of
a maple, splitting it a few feet along its trunk.
From a small satchel, I withdrew a sandwich and a canteen of water
and watched squirrels slink their way through bare brush,
along trees, and past the hills that formed there.

I was amazed at how connected everything was.
Every grass that would sprout, every fawn to be born,
every pine to knock out brilliant tunes under
the wild sun had their own purpose which
reflected the purpose of all other things.
It was then that I realized my religion.
My faith was in the soil, within the lakes and rivers,
within the heart of the beaver which dammed them all
up for its own.

In that is life and death,
noting when you've stayed too long and
the stern stomp of a doe
to help you find your place
if you happen to forget.