November 2002 Issue - Essay # 9
A
Mid-Winter's Eve
By Lee Ennis
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On
a mid-winter's eve, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, I walk the
dirt and gravel road that ends at my house, looking, listening, hearing
and breathing in all that nature offers me. A dove in the distance coos
as two lithely take to wing on a whistle from the tall burnt-gold grass
that borders the road. Horses whinny as I pass the field where they
feed, watching me like a dog guarding his food bowl. On
the northern wind blows a chill electrifying all living things, even I
have more spring in my step. Puppies, frisky and playfully jumping and
running, wrestling, chewing on one-another's ear. They tumble as they
trip over their oversized feet they have yet to grow into. The
mountains in the distant blue. The darkened wood adorned in evergreen,
bejeweled with pools of sun adrift on the winds tide as day flows west. As
I turn right onto an adjoining road, the soiled gravel beneath my feet,
harsh in contrast to all that my senses--now in full bloom--contemplate.
A young whitetail doe harmlessly feeding on grass along the edge of the
coppice, flees into the wind crossing my path no more than twenty feet
in front of me. Her eyes large and the deepest of brown, holding such
beauty and wisdom of nature’s ways and instinct of survival handed
down from antediluvian ancestors. I pause to admire her tracks along the
roads edge, a ritual I have performed since childhood. I cannot help but
to marvel at this sign of presence left by such an amazing animal, this
gift given us, an endowment, as is all life on this extraordinary
planet. If
man would slow down, take notice and ponder with reason, genuinely
trying to see the singularity and splendor that all of life upon this
breathing orb--that we call earth--offers, how much more congenial this
world would be to live in. Another
hundred yards beyond this place there joins another road bordering the
land of a friend forty years my senior, and I am not a young man.
Charlie Floyd, a teller of tales both temperate and callous, has lived
in these mountains for eighty-nine years and has more stories to tell
than time to tell them. When time does permit, we sit beneath the tall
pines over looking the hollow behind Charlie's small mobile home. There
is a pond in this hollow filled with fish and loved by the local beavers
and otters. Migrating ducks and geese make their presence known in
spring and fall. On
this day, the pond--in spite of the brisk northern wind, is as smooth
as silk but for an occasional ripple, as a wisp of wind steals down the
ridge to intrude upon the serenity of the lakes surface. We sit in hush,
there will be no story told today exclusive of the one unfolding before
our eyes. One should pause and allow their senses to guide them through
the oldest story told on this earth, a story understood by few--nature’s story. |
| Author's Biography Lee
Ennis is a freelance writer. Born in Throughout
his 12 years on the road as a musician, he was doing some freelance
writing and photography. Since his marriage to Dawn, he has settled down
making writing/photography a full time endeavor. Lee is published both in print and on-line. Most recently published in, Skyline Literary Magazine, June 2002 issue Taj Mahal Review and The Golden Wings (an anthology of world poetry) as well as online at http://www.thepoets.org and http://www.afreelancewriter.com E-mail Lee at lee_ennis@afreelancewriter.com
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Essay
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