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Walking With Dog

Sometimes, when Devils Fork Park is unexpectedly full of humans and pets, a few laps walked around an uncrowded overflow parking lot is good enough for Mica and me. Mica, still magnificent, just had her 12th birthday, and she leads with joyful canine determination to never grow old. Surrounding this parking lot is landscape gone wild. Huge wind rows of trunks and branches from Hurricane Helene sink back towards earth. Thick blackberry brambles camouflage the slow process of rot. Purple mandalas of passion flowers insist on adding decoration. A dense stand of thorny black locusts has sprouted in one place; a dense stand of glorious sumac in another. Invasive Japanese climbing fern is trying to settle in, certain no one will notice. Sourwoods growing along the edge of woods scent the air with subtle perfume. Mica and I hear the sharp, single note of a bird, over here, now over there, now further down. Blue grosbeaks, a pair or more. We watch until we see birds rising and dropping through the thicket of blackberries and pine sprouts. Regrowth around a parking lot. What a fine place for a nature walk.~K