I sit in the hollow for a long time, listening to the little shifting sounds the bugs make, and to the wind through the almost bare branches of the trees, and to the rustle of the leaves on the ground. I don’t usually think about plants that much, but sitting here so still, I notice that a young cedar has twisted itself around the trunk of a huge sweet gum tree and I wonder how that happened. I look way up in the branches of the sweet gum and I see a tiny bird hopping around up there. It’s a black shape against the light of the sky. The breeze moves the fronds of the big ferns down by the water.
It’s like I’m allowed to get close enough to heaven to see it, to touch it, even to sit right down in the middle of it, but I can’t ever be a part of it, because I can’t ever forget.