For a true contemplative, a gratuitously falling green leaf
will awaken awe and wonder just as much as a golden tabernacle
in a cathedral.
—Richard Rohr
from “A New Cosmology: Nature as the First Bible”
•••
This is where I worship,
awakened with green awe.
So much of what I am made of is here:
under old oaks with long-reaching arms,
some with trunks as thick as elephants’
legs or even their stout middles,
craggy-barked oaks with long limbs
and spindly digits that touch the ground,
undisturbed, untrimmed, losing bits
of themselves gradually, often in storms,
but mostly standing tall and strong,
silent sentries for 100 years or more.
Here I sit in the sanctuary of my people,
the ones who brought us to this place,
now the companion spirits who join
these oak ancestors to call my attention
to a choir of bird song and insect hum,
punctuated by the percussion of a solo
woodpecker. This is as holy a place
as I have ever felt, where the beloved dead
linger in the long shadows and late light
of a warm November afternoon,
the sun lowering itself, as I do, into
fresh grass risen green by recent rains.
I don’t want to miss a bit of this day.
Güd wrtr 
Your beautiful photo reminds me of the mile-long daily morning walk I and my siblings took to Oakmont High School in the early 1970s. Between Cirby Creek and Cirby Way (along which the school is located), our path took us past a hundred-acre undeveloped area filled with ancient blue oaks, that often cast morning shadows, as in your picture, not only over us, but added the magic of the low sun silhouetting horses that some nameless landowner allowed to graze calmly behind barbed wire. Thankfully, most of that hundred acres, at least along the creek, became a preserve with wonderful trails, initially constructed to save the salmon runs that once filled those waters, as well as to preserve the ten-thousand-year-old sandstone Maidu acorn mortars and carved petroglyphs which may be observed all throughout that basin.
If you find yourself in Roseville, you can walk these trails by going to Warren T. Eich Middle School inside of the old Sierra Gardens development, and accessing a footbridge just south of the playground, none of which is fenced. I walked it about eight years ago and found it to be just as magical as my teenage memories recalled. I even located the remnants of a sisal rope we tied to the branches of one enormous oak that overhung the creek and from which we swung like young Tarzans, launching ourselves into the water on hot summer days.
Oh, what a lovely story, Terry! I’m going to encourage you to write more about this, turn it into a piece of memoir… because I’d love to hear more! Spin that out a bit and tell me a tale of you and your siblings on that path… and something about your life together. Then email it to me!
Just beautiful, Jan.
May I use this photo along with one of my poems sometime, please? Of course I’ll give you credit.
With love,
Amrita
Of course, Amrita. I can email it to you, if you like.
Love,
Jan