The unrest of the forest became evident at the turn off the main road. Thistles thrust their purple crown through the piles of snow-white blackberry vines, thorn to thorn battling for precious ground. Young pines surrounded the massive trunk of a long-dead oak tree in the pasture, taunting the old pine across the road who, leaning in his old age, eyed the place he would eventually fall with no one to help him up again. There is no withstanding their sluggish ambush.
The old pond waits patiently for ducks, quietly knitting water lilies and nursing tadpoles from the mud.
Walking through a cloud of gnats and fairies it's difficult to tell which is which by taste. One is confident, however, that fairies tickle the nose and ears while gnats really don't put up a fight. None are eaten on purpose and neither tastes like chicken.
The mottled road is quiet around the second turn, away from the weedeaters and tillers hard at work trimming and turning over the yard. Back at the Pony Farm, the Shetlands attended to their spring mix while the dogs kept the passerby at bay along the fenceline. For the first time, one heard sheep back behind the place where the chickens roam free, just down the road from the mother hawk who keeps an eye on the farm, not far from her nest.
A crow laughed at the little dog who rushed out a noisy welcome but he would not cross the ditch of black water, stagnating from the last rain that scrubbed the world clean.
The unrest of the forest continues along the road. Not far from a bent pine stands a bent oak. Passing by one wonders what happened that interrupted their upward stretch. One day they were growing straight and fine, reaching with joy toward the sun and then suddenly they were broken, pushed, twisted, splintered. The cracking must have been an awful sound. They bled and wept yet, despite all the sap, they continued to grow. Changed, certainly, but they did not stop growing. The pain took them a new direction. The pine grows in the pines and the oak grows in the oaks, both along the same road, together, under the sun.
The lesson of the trees might be this: cut a tree down and look at the rings. There's the evidence the tree has gotten older. But don't be so quick. Look at the shape of the tree and see how it first grew one way and then another--misshapen? Certainly. But growing, nevertheless, which is evidence the tree is not just older but better. Somehow.
It's quiet. Listen to the Mourning Doves coo and the Cowbirds trickle in the trees. The wind moves the woodland. Just stop. Be stripped of every grandiose thought and realize how small you are. Know that you are a part of the world. Consider the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap, but God feeds them. How much more does He take care of you? And me?
Consider all that grows in the field. The flowers do not spin or weave--the ever-changing and delicate colors are more majestic than the greatest King. God clothes the fields with tender flower both large and small, yet how much more does He take care of you? And me?
