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Today, the soft spring of the path of spruce

Through a garden brilliant green over the forest floor

Carpeting stone

Cushioning soft footsteps

The cormorant dives

Flaps furiously away 

The only sound

But the wind

And everything that was harsh

And asked too much

And would not be silent 

Softens here this morning

As I do

Moss covering granite stone

The young lobsterman at the bar

Quotes Eliot and Proust 

And talks about tough

The kind of tough that is life out here

The life that no one respects 

Unless you spend a week out fishing

Puking like he did there by the lines

Everyday for a week until he didn’t anymore 

And joined his father and learned to fish

A contentment and contempt 

For this island where there is nothing here 

A young man might want 

A restlessness that by March 

Makes us all a bit stir crazy 

Out looking for something 

To stir up some trouble

On the mainland 

He writes poetry in coffee shops 

Where you can get away with such things

And not be laughed off the island

Where people call tough a misplaced cell phone 

Or intermittent cell service

Where work is expected to be easy

And respect doesn’t need to be earned

I remember how soft the path was 

Spongy and springy with moss

Not yet packed down to solid earth 

Exposing hard roots and rock.

A freshness here yet undiscovered

So green.

Later that morning 

I walked in dark forests dry and brown

Rooted and rough 

And only wanted to find my way through.

Now that I have 

I wonder what the fuss was about 

Why I needed to hurry so

What this was that disturbs me here 

That I do not wish to pause to know.  

This thou perceiv’st which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.  

(“Sonnet 73”, William Shakespeare) 

The mergansers are leaving,

The cove quiet now.

Ninety-five here last week

Loud quacking,

Orange plumes descending,

We stepped away from our morning reading

To see what the fuss was all about.

To count how many 

As if in the counting the wonder might be contained

The memory captured for safe keeping 

In this quick passage of autumn days.

The leaves orange and red

So quickly fall

The beloved old cat soon die

Who lies watching the stream

Wondering if there is anything on the other side

worth wandering over to see.

Slow as it takes this morning to come together 

To rise from a tangle of sleep 

Into the dark gift of morning and coffee 

And clarity on the hill,

Mountains turning pink and gold.

Steady and slow as dark runs on dirt roads 

Lit only by the single beam of a headlamp.

Slow as footsteps soft and springy through the grove of spruce

Sprinkled with the tiniest of needles and cones 

A path not yet packed down to hard roots and granite.  

Slow as the crunch of dry brown leaves, 

The hollow tapping of feet on the boardwalk over the bog

The slurping stick of mud

The clicking of poles.

Steady as the slow climb to the open ledge peak

Gold and red leafed

Sparkling blue lake and sky. 

Slow as it takes coming down carefully

Over the steep stone ledge.

As slow as it takes the old cat to die

Lying there looking at the stream 

Wondering if there is anything 

Interesting enough to bother going after 

Remembering when once she did.  

As slow as it takes apple crisp to bubble in the oven,

Slow as it is for the young man to find his way to alright on the other side of inconsolable,

Slow as the sun rise standing here on the beach on this cold morning,

Slow as we are drifting in the glassy bay, waiting for the sun to set over golden water. 

Slow as it takes blisters to heal, 

For feet to mend

For ideas to be formed into words.

Slow as it takes for mercy to be be found 

A stream of orange light across a dark sky 

That turns so quickly

To shadow and shade

Sending us scurrying for headlamps.

The ancient Hebrew word for holy, kadosh, means separation, because when we separate ourselves from quotidian tasks – the busyness involved in making a living and a comfortable home – we can experience the vastness, the eternal, the greater sphere beyond our more grounded selfish concerns.  We have to give ourselves to empty time to find meaning.  Empty time is also valuable for creativity.  Neuroscience reveals that when our brain is on idle and not devoted to specific tasks, when we daydream and doodle in our mind, we can achieve new insights and make creative leaps.  (From More Than Meets the Eye: Exploring Nature and Loss on the Coast of Maine, Margie Patlak, p. 61)

In daydream and doodle where does a mind go?

To stopping at the Penobscot Narrows Bridge Observatory on this most beautiful morning as there is nothing more pressing to do today than to ascend and see.

Time for lunch that has time to flow beyond the list of questions to the wonder of reconnecting. To have time to tell of the things that might have taken days to tell.  

Wonder time and time for questions without answers.

Where is the Wind?

To what am I called?

Empty time that leads me wandering the woods and wondering.  

Writing time and solitary time and time to meet wonderful new people on the trail.  

Someone asked me how it was to be alone in the woods and I said I never felt alone and did not. It wasn’t only that I met people on the trail each day like the two young men by the fire with whom I shared dinner and listened to their stories. The two middle age men who had strung their wet belongings in long lines throughout the lean-to, (did they fall in the stream during the crossing?) delighted to be here and hiking on this trail and not the 100 Mile Wilderness which took a lot more effort than they were finding so easily here. Who directed me to the campsite they had passed down the trail, a good wide space with not too many roots, there by the stream.  Yes, the hiker who left me laughing all day with her comment that she didn’t find the 100 Mile Wilderness hard but only beautiful while I had found it most certainly both! No, even when alone, never alone. Perhaps it was writing, scribbles along the way, sitting on a log at the close of the day by the pond.  Perhaps those times of stopping in the woods and breathing when I had got too caught up in getting somewhere when there was no place to get. Perhaps meditation on mountaintops, perhaps the little videos I made and pictures I sent to friends and family to share the experience with them. Perhaps because I knew why I was there. Whatever it was, it was never alone. Perhaps, home.  

Home as miraculous and temporary as the beauty of a fall day bright blue sky and brilliant tree – orange, yellow, green and red.  

Home in the circle that gathers below the red tail hawk circling above.  

Home talking over Zen at dinner and drifting in kayaks to watch the sunset.  

Home in the Bible study on the lawn with the old man and other old people on Zoom

and young girl sitting beside me who left home to find a wider perspective.  

Home of apple crisp and peanut butter cookies you made just because you cannot help but serve and share for that is what happens at home.

At home in the Maine woods.

In the unsettlement of emptying, 

And the dislocation of nothing to hold to, 

At home where everything can happen,

The discovery of what we are about and why.

The last morning before heading East. Sitting here on the stoop at Phil’s and all I can do is say thank you, thank you, thank you, over and over again, thank you. 

Thank you for a 6 day hike on the AT, for camping 5 nights out like I wanted to do, for nights alone on a mountain top and by a roaring stream. For watching the fog lift off the pond.  A contemplative ramble.

Than you for two bonus hikes when I return – for Kineo and Borestone and Pebble Beach. For talking to the couple last night at the bar at Kelly’s and the kid at the Indian Store who directed me there. Thank you for the young man who stepped off the trail to be responsible to his three month old son. Thank you for the couple doing laundry, and getting to meet Guy who is hiking the trail with a brain injury. 

Thank you for the call of the loon and the moan of the moose in the fog, for talks and texts with friends and family in the parking lot of the Monson General Store.  

Thank you for the gift of meeting Eric the piano player from church and his mom on the trail, for falling leaves through a burst of color. Thank you for the release of leaves.  

Thank you to the chattering squirrel. For wonder and possibility and all of it. For who knows and I wonder what. For knowing what needs doing and doing it. Thank you for good sweat and tears. For Trail Magic generosity that ends up gifting me. For walking in beauty below, above, all around.  

Thank you for the little boy who finds a red salamander and holds it in his hand. For the people who made it to the top who thought they never would. For the mom and her son at the top of the fire-tower, he with his sneakers and how he explains that he made it over the sharp rocks with them but doesn’t want to go down that way. For safe passages down. 

Thank you for sunset and sunrise, the crescent moon, the Milky Way so white and bright across the dark sky. For this breath of time, this gift of air. 

For all of it, more than enough. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you.  

A spot on the trail

A log to sit on

Falling leaves

And a burst of orange

A gold leaf

A handful of peanuts and melted chocolate

The refreshment of water

The remnant of cheese.

Nothing special 

And everything is 

When I stop to notice.

On the river bank of the West Branch tonight, about five miles from home. Here at the site that the SOBO hikers at the shelter had noticed on their way up here. A good size spot, not too many roots, with a couple of logs to sit on, right off the trail and here at the river bank.  

Just the kind of spot I was looking for on this last night, this fifth night in the woods I wanted. Yes, plenty of food and breakfast in the morning. Yes, the song of the stream and an extra mile down the trail I wanted to take.

I’ve felt good today, coming off the night on the mountain. A good deal of tears and release on the mountaintop that woke in me joy and lifted my spirits. Steady good hiking today. 

I’ve loved the pace I’ve chosen – ramble pace, wonder pace. Stopping in the woods pace to take it all in.  After days of working at it, I’ve settled into the swing of the trail.  

So glad I did not rush to a finish but took this time. Receiving as I do tonight the memory and gift of the river, the pond, the mountaintop, the trail, the call of the loon.  

I think on the words of release I shared with the congregation last Sunday, the release of the trail this week. Pray for release for Mango obsessing over the what if’s and wherefore’s of a lost love. For Popeye, trying to figure out his future before he’s there.  

After returning from his own hike in the Maine woods, Thoreau asked his Native American guide, Joe Polis, “Are you glad to be home?”  

Polis replied, “It makes no difference to me where I am.”

I like what artist Jennifer Neptune makes of Polis’ reply:

“What if his response means, I’m always home because we belong to this land. It doesn’t belong to us, we are part of it like the salmon and eagles and deer and moose, which makes it all home, which makes us responsible to all these things.”

I left my home of 20 months last week without a permanent address except for the box under Jason’s desk where he’s keeping my mail until I tell him what to do with it. I left a story that ended and heading towards a new one that I cannot yet see. And yet, this week has reminded me that rather than uncertain or afraid, I feel called to this passage, called to the discovery of this interim time. This time in the woods reminding me of a groundedness I feel, an at-homeness I carry in me wherever I go.  

When I return the next morning, Phil asks, “What did you do out there all that time? 

I laugh and have no answer. Tell him of taking time just to stop and listen on the trail and swim in cold ponds. Time to hear the call of the moose and the loon through the rising fog, four hours sitting and watching the light change on the mountaintop.  

“I couldn’t do that,” he says. 

We laugh.

And yes, while I was out hiking 34 miles over 6 days, he’d hiked 32 in 2.  

“How do you come up with your sermons?” the guy at the bar asks me that night. 

“Why, out on the trail,” I say, “And here, in a conversation.” 

“You’d probably end up in a sermon,” I tell him. 

We both laugh.  

I stopped on the way down, almost turned back.   

After filling my water at the base of Moxie Bald Mountain, almost hiked back up to the top to spend the night. I could imagine seeing the sunset, stars and sunrise. Longed to do so. 

But I didn’t turn back and chose to come down, down here to the pond and I am glad now for it. It’s what I planned on doing and have been looking forward to all day. This cold plunge and paddle in the pond when there’s no one here but the loons calling across the lake. 

Its been an amazing day. Impossible to describe just how beautiful it was up there on the top of Moxie Bald Mountain. Looking over towards Pleasant Mountain, I see why I’d struggled on those 5 miles down yesterday over what I can see now were three peaks, down and up, down and up before getting down to the stream where I’d camped last night. 

And then, later atop North Peak, an open ledge peak with a clear 360 degree view all around. I don’t know if I’ve ever been anywhere more beautiful.  

A dozen hawks, black and circling.  

I declare it my favorite mountain ever, and the hiker I startle along the trail agrees. She never sees anyone out here, and yes, it is the most wonderful place. She comes here as often as she’s able. Sometimes the side trail is exactly where you need to go. 

Down here at the pond, at the close of my day, I think that as much I might have imagined camping out on the mountaintop that in fact it wasn’t a good idea. I wouldn’t feel comfortable up there alone and walking around on the trails at night to see the stars and sunset. I chose the pond wisely. I look up at the mountain as the light descends. Imagine the sunset up there!  

A first star appears as I sit here wondering when it will. A lone star above the lake.  

I think of all those tears in the mountain labyrinth as I stood in the center earlier today. Every goodbye contains every other goodbye. So many tears today after months of no tears at all. What is this grief?  What are these tears? An offering of what? For what?  

I wake to the pond covered in dense fog. Sitting here on the rock, a flutter of wings behind me as I turn my head. Red squirrel crackling leaves, now chattering angrily above. A beaver hunches on the rock, gnawing wood. Slips into the pond, paddles by to another rock where she hunches, gnaws on another stick as the loon sings and sings. An owl calls. Woodpecker taps. The rock reflected in the still pond. The fog thick and still.  

And as I sit here declare that I’m going to spend the night on the North Peak. Name today a retreat day that will give me that 5^th night in the woods I wanted and not sure how I was going to get.  

The loud couple who’d come in last night come down to the pond to take a look before heading out.  

The woman in the hooded blue jacket says, “Oh, this is a pond. I wondered what this white thing was down here.” Heads with her partner off down the trail.  

They are here for other things. Off to Katahdin or Georgia. As for me, to sit here this morning in the fog and listen to the singing of the loons. 

The sun begins to rise, wisps of fog dance across the lake. 

I stay by the pond until the sun breaks through. I will follow the days rhythm.  

I know I could hike on to Horseshoe Cavern today and come out to Monson tomorrow. That too would be okay. And this is the day I choose, mountaintop receiving.  For now, receive the sun’s warmth. 

As the sun comes up, the cold descends. Sit here shivering and wondering why is it so cold. Silence but for my pen scratching.  

And out of the fog, the groan of a moose, a moaning cow.  

Receive this chill, this cold, this warmth of the sun’s dull orb through the mist. Receive, this morning, this moose call in fog, this grace of a day.

I cannot help but ascend. 

Whose voice is it that calls me to go? How do I know it can be trusted?  The voice that yesterday said I would not do this, today says, Yes. Yesterday, full of apprehension and considerations. Today, no fear. I choose to go. 

Yesterday, I wanted to swim and be here by the pond in the late afternoon. Yesterday, dreamed down here of being up there on the mountaintop. Didn’t know what to do or trust. Today, do. Know what I desire.  

The loon sings again, the red squirrel chatters. The snap of a tree that falls with a thump.  

I lean back and fall asleep on the rock.

When I open my eyes, the fog lifted, the pond clear. The sky opens blue, so blue and warm after the descent of cold. How the pond changes in a thousand ways while I sit here.  

As I slip on my pack, pick up confidence. The last vestiges of considerations fall away. I know why I am here and why. I remember what you reminded me: I can trust in the path and that God is with me. Trust I am going in the right direction. Trust being myself. 

I ascend. Out to the labyrinth, I circle again. Receive: There is nothing to fear. I don’t even know what it means but trust it is true. What I do know is the wind picked up as I stepped in. The barking dogs in the valley are silent now.  

A raven makes low croaking noises soaring overhead.  

Some go to mountain tops for Vision Quests and to discern their Animal Spirit. Some to meet God. As for me, I’d settle for a sunset and sunrise, the view of the stars from the peak. That sunset like Mango woke to see, the stars on the peak we’d thought about trekking up to see on our hike a few months back and never did.  

I can’t believe I’m here. 

The mid afternoon light sublime.

A reflection of trees in the valley pond below.  

A deer crosses the ledge, long white tail trailing behind. No fear.  

What I hadn’t taken account of in being on a mountaintop is the wind, especially the likes of the wind on an open-ledgetop like this. The howling of wind, a wind that slides over and around the rocks I huddle behind in the waning afternoon light. A stilling silence, a whoosh and flap, a gathering gust.  

I find a spot here at the peak to set up my tent. Exclaim at my good fortune to have found such a spot, to be out of the wind tonight, warm and dry. 

The sunset descends over the mountains; the eastern peaks, darken. 

Catch sight of a falling star. First time in forever!  

All the considerations flap out of me into the night air.  

Later, awake to the howling wind, clammer out of the flapping tent to see the stars. Keep waking all night to poke out my head, to see more, to know that it is true. 

The next morning, wake to stillness. The night sky still ablaze and far to the East the first turn of color.  

The loon calls from the pond below.  

I descend for morning breakfast on the rock.  

I remember how just the other day all the old considerations and clinging came up on the trail. The assurance of hearing from Popeye and Mango that it happens for them too. It’s not only me. All the things I don’t want to think that I think about. All the what if’s and if only’s. Getting lost in trying to unstuck what is dead and gone. 

Today as I step out, its not old considerations, but joy I find. A kind of joy that inhabits me — Here in my ease of step, the swing of the pack. Here in this tapestry of color and light. Here in this beaming smile that I cannot wipe from my face. 

Later, back here at Bald Mountain Pond. Sitting again on the warm rock, the lake clear, serene. The loon trills her morning call again and again.

What is possible for you now? he asks, days from now. Why anything, anything is possible.