The Woods at Dusk

 (I posted this last year. I still like it.)

It’s late December and the woods are quiet. 

I stand in my backyard lost in the mystery of trees. Two squirrels chase each other through the snow and deepening shadows. I listen to trees creak in the breeze, and hear the soft click-click-click of empty sunflower shells land on each other, dropped by wrens and finches at the feeder. The magenta of sunset flows across the sky, then shifts to rose. 

People around my neighborhood have placed electric candles in their windows and draped garlands of lights over their bushes and along their eaves to welcome their families home.

I let the presence of nature settle into me. Weary from a long year of challenges, I wait for something unknown to come. I want to root myself into nature’s wonder, and scale back my expectations so that simple things delight me again. I want to feel renewal and believe again that all good things are possible.

There is something eternal about nature, something that endures no matter what happens, something unchanging. When I spend time in the woods, on the prairie, or along a river, I believe that enough compassion still exists in people’s hearts.

The quiet conversations of animals and birds go on in the woods. As the last of the sunset fades, the sky deepens to the radiant night blue of the cosmos. Stars appear and sparkle in the cold. The earth is sailing through the dark, majestic ocean of constellations. I think of what Sigurd Olson wrote when he paused in his paddling on Lake Superior to listen to nature around him:

The movement of a canoe is like a reed in the wind. Silence is part of it, and the sounds of lapping water, bird songs, and wind in the trees. It is part of the medium through which it floats, the sky, the water, the shore.

My neighbors across the way are hosting a holiday party. I hear the happy music and laughter and see the colorful lights and dancing. Someone comes out on the deck, stands by the railing, and gazes into the woods. Perhaps the party has become overheated or too loud, and they need to take a break. Together we listen to nature celebrating this night in its quiet way. Perhaps we feel the earth turning back towards spring.

The moments when we pause our busy lives to look into the darkness with more curiosity than fear are eternal. It’s when we remember that life is not a race but a dialogue.

The breath of oblivion. The impermanence of time. The eternity of hope.