Field Maple
Keep in! the teacher at the back of the line of children called, gently, as they scuttled excitedly from the school yard onto the pavement this morning. Ah sunshine! I shared a little in their excitement remembering teacher telling us to Keep in as we scramble out of school to go on a ramble. Two by two, hand in hand and one behind the other. Just once a year we went into the woods during school time to…ramble. I loved those days.
The new leaves on the Field Maple caught my eye. They shine. Then as other leaves grow they lose their shine, mature and mellow. As is the way of things. One sees this process everywhere. Easy to think in sad terms. Perhaps in terms of passing time and all that brings in an everyday way. Of aging; decay and eventual shriveling up and ceasing to be. But I think not. Not today. There is something eternal in the scuttling excited children as with the new leaves. (And also equally true with the shriveled leaf.) There is certainly a depth to existence which is not diminished by mere passing of physical time.
Me too, I always thought we didn’t go on a ‘nature walk’ often enough. We would all bring back one item – an acorn, a conker, a stone, fallen twig or leaf – & put them on a table to remember the walk.
Yes I remember that too. Bringing back something. But I also remember being revolted by stick insects on our nature table…wondering where they came from….not our woods I’d have thought.