“There they are!”
I watched the thin black ribbon of Canadian geese, gracefully winging over walnut trees and across the south pasture.
I took off running through the tall clover. I followed their slow descent into a farm pond.
It was my tenth autumn on this piece of land, and I was just awakening to the larger world around me.
I laid watching through golden October grass, as the geese settled in for the night.
In the distance I saw the barn where my father was milking cows. I saw him moving around in the pale light of the barn’s naked bulbs, casting a slanted yellow path out into the calming barnyard.
57 years later, with the first chill, I am carried back to that night and what I felt laying on the damp ground.
My relationship with nature has been my anchor, and inspired my expanding sense of wonder. No matter where I am, I seek out even the smallest piece of nature, or at sunset find my way to a view of the horizon.
We can never hold all this Earth has to offer. But, if we are lucky, if we are awake to it, if we are living a life as an open door, we may have an autumn evening that provides us with a lifeline ribbon that connects our beginning with our ending.
I’m Dan Kenney, and this is my perspective.
