Finding summer's wonder, joys

The first days of summer come on cool gentle breezes as children run amid the playing fields kicking soccer balls or chase rabbits that spring surprised from the grass. Crows perch upon the surrounding trees arguing over some indiscretion as hawks glide along the river fringe looking for prey amid the sheltering bushes.

I walked past these playing fields and crossed into the wetlands of silver maple and waist-high ferns, down to the edge of the muddy Cooper River in Haddonfield. There I found an ancient oak tree tumbled into the water, its trunk so wide that I climbed upon its broad back and walked halfway across the river, standing at the end like a diver on a wood troll's log.

I thought about time, about rebirth, as the tree gently swayed beneath my footfalls, sending ripples downstream on the river's back. There were live branches where the tree's roots still clung to the embankment, sprouting greenery, while farther out drowned twigs set loose by my unsteady approach floated free and drifted downstream.

I thought of the solidity of the oak dissolving into the river's throat. The river swallowing the tree in small bites after every storm, until decades pass, eroding all trace of the oak except for an accumulated shoal of mud and clay built up behind its former bulk. That too would dissolve in time, sediment released from the fallen tree's impoundment, the endless flow of the seasonal rains flattening the bottom again, returning the river to sleek tranquillity.

Time and rebirth - the nature of the world that moves at a rhythm so dissimilar to mankind - strike me with wonder at times. Man's intrusion so inconsequential to natural phenomenon. Yet my ability to feel wonder and joy on the back of that fallen tree in the brown water (to my mind) is as meaningful as the tree's presence in our conjunction of fates.

The tree did not need me on its back to give meaning to its fall. But how wondrous that I can describe my joy and share it. Knowing that tree and man will eventually disappear, both returned to mud and dust, but my words will ripple upon the river of understanding as long as words can be read.

Perception of form gives me function. By describing the thin lattice of the world, I push against the strakes of a marvelous machine that motivates the universe in ways unknown to tree or rock or me. I sense laughter in the river, sadness in the mud, and in my heart I hear bells.