The Ridge

I walk the ridge line, following the well-worn trail past 300 year old longleaf pines that stand like sentinels before the passage of time. There are other sojourners here too--gnarled black-jack oaks, mountain white oak--even the huckleberry bushes that cover the ground where the sunlight filters through the canopy seem old--much older than I am. Much older than I will ever be.

The tallest of the longleaf on this spot of ground has been struck by lightning. There is a long scar, bark peeled in a smooth strip from near the topmost branch all the way to the ground. It is an old scar, but a wound none-the-less. A visible indicator that a jagged bolt can descend from an angry sky and change everything in an instant. The plight of the tree reminds me that standing tall and proud is not always the best option, for trees or people.

A small fire blazed up from the lightning strike. It was brief but intense. Some of the smaller trees, stunted dogwood and scrub persimmon, were burned before the rain followed the lightning spark and doused the flames. Such is the nature of storms. It is not always the tallest and strongest that take the hit and suffer. Sometimes the innocent bystanders have the worse fate.

I pick up a strip of the thin peeled bark and put it in my pocket. It is a talisman of a sort--a reminder that other bolts will drop from these same heavens, sometimes even before a whisper of a breeze indicates that a storm is on the horizon. Jagged, loose electricity without a wire, high voltage descending through the stillness of heavy air. Such are not random, though they may appear so. They are predestined, preordained before the beginning of time. There is no other way that they could be. Like the trail worn by the passage of feet and hooves for ages and ages that I walk on this Fall day. There is no other place this trail could be; no other time that it could be walked by me in this way and in this moment.

I cross a ledge where the trail narrows in the ridge line. It is a thin, rocky place between the broad flat of the hilltops before and behind me. I imagine that from the air above it looks as if God pinched this spot while the bedrock was cooling, like a woman works the edges of a pie crust out of soft white dough. The soil is eroded and thin--nothing grows here for the lack of an anchor-hold. I mind my feet on the exposed granite. This is where the rattlesnake comes to warm on the first few cool days of Fall.

The ledge safely crossed, I follow the trail a few hundred yards until the ridge flattens wide again. Another trail, more faint but still discernible, angles toward the side slope. A fox squirrel chatters a warning as I step onto this path to make my descent. Whether this warning is for me or for other squirrels, I cannot know. Only time and the descent will tell.

I only know that I am headed down, but I have known that in my heart for some time now. Down the steep side slope to the broad level land in the hollow below. There is a creek flowing there, although I cannot see or hear its music yet. And near that creek is my destination.

Next: The Descent