Today I have seen water lilies in still waters, and lichens pebbling the surface of dry rocks nearby. I watched the flurry of infant butterflies, and the running footsteps of my children. I sat in the shade of trees a century old and smelled their sap mixed with the snuffy spice of a fresh-growing meadow. A centipede crossed a patch of dirt, and a little boy warned me not to touch it. Then he ran to chase grazing cows, heedless of their size.
Warmth enfolded me from all sides. Retreating from the grandeur of the evergreens, I lay on the meadow-grass, yet found nature scaled down to meet me there. Endless forms most beautiful, as Darwin said, even in the varied tufts of foreground green. All struggling to grow and bud and then die in a single summer’s sun, while patient giants above us worked quietly for another season’s needles, sap, and cones.
Reflecting, now, I feel the earth cool and the scents fade into the recesses of the night. The Milky Way traces its arc above the silhouettes of trees that stand expectant for the life-driving light of tomorrow’s sun. I watch meteor trails, and wonder at the beauty of this day, of this one life among so much, so many. All blazing, brief sensations that then pass into memory.
In the ghostly glow of thousand-year old starlight photons, I finally walk home. Now, without my witness, the earth will continue hurtling through a comet’s wake, spinning, until it turns my land again towards the sun. The universe will spark and strain and glow without me, until I awaken, and dance with it once again.
