I found some odd pock-marked patterns on some of the sandstone boulders, wall-art of the Fae, I'm thinking. Yep, if the Little People are around, this is where they would hang out. There were little burrows, doorways, into a base of the tree and a junction of a tree and rock. "Holy Crap," I thought, "I've fallen into hobbitville here." The moss was an intense, dark green. That old English folk song, "Down By the Greenwood Sidey" was running through my mind (it doesn't end well).
I drove down to Cantwell Cliffs and took the trail and sandstone steps down to the cliff edge. It was close to sundown by then, the sky was still overcast. I walked along the cliff edge up to where a small stream spills on over the sharp edge of the rock. Deja vu, the last time I was in there was 30 some years ago, collecting bryophyte (moss and liverwort) specimens for a botany class at Ohio State. And they were still there, everywhere covering the Black Hand sandstone. I passed a formation like a neolithic dolmen, and walked back up the rock stairway. They had quite a snowstorm a few weeks ago and a good-sized oak was broken off, the raw, orange heartwood vivid against the dark greens and grays. I went back to the house and met the rest of them for dinner.
The next day, I went to church with my wife and was pleased to see one of my nephews acting as an usher and the younger one reading the epistle. So there is a new generation coming along. The processional was the old hymn, "Now the Green Blade Riseth":
Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.
Spring is coming.
Here is the gallery:
