The path was carpeted in green and gold today, crunching and tossing as I kicked through the alder leaves. It is a glorious day for a walk, and the blue sky provides a contrast to the leaf litter below. The alders are mostly naked, now, somehow more authentic. The colors and shapes of their wood become more apparent, once the leaves have fallen and the light let through. The alder bark reminds me of the ways some horses are dappled in shades of grey. Light and dark, the colors create their own shadowplay, and tufts of green stick out jauntily to and fro. I look up, and see that there are still some leaves high in the treetops, but they are singular now, the last to holdout.
I think about how these alders live her, filling in the low open spaces. The humus beneath my boots is thick, and dark, and squishy. The mud pulls at my feet, as if it wants me to stay awhile, and visit. How many layers of leaves have gone before, creating this land filling the spaces, feeding their descendants? I know that alders are not old trees, and this wood here may be filling in an old lumber site, or and old swamp. It is still fairly mature for an alder wood, though, and many old alders already have fallen over, to do their part in the humus building project.
I smile down at the leaves, thinking about the magnitude of what has gone before us. So many autumns, since long before there were people to call it so. Before the deciduous trees, there were conifers, and other life that made the soil rich and lush. All things returned to their roots, so to speak.
In the mud there is a print: a hoof print. It is large, as such things go, and I wonder if it is the stag I chased from my yard yesterday. It was a young buck, with only five points, but he was muscular and strong, and had little fear of me. When I yelled out from my back porch, he only retreated a few steps, challenging me with a steady gaze to come out and face him like a deer. I had to find my shoes first, but he was patient, and didn’t really believe that I would dare to come out to meet him. When I jumped off the porch he leapt one way, then another. He ran forward a few steps, and turned to see if I would really run him off. I am a gardener; it is a matter of pride. I ran after him until he headed under the apple tree and across the street. He was much thicker around than other deer I have chased away. I have not been so close to a buck, not in this season. He was in his prime, and I got to stand him down.
This mud makes good footprints. I follow them along the path, up a hill and into the first small fir grove. The trees are short here, at the crest of the path, and there is much space between them. The air is still, and dry and yet there is a different sound up here. The firs are shedding their needles, and they hit the ground with a steady tapping reminiscent of rain. But there is no splash in this sound, no plop. There is no juicy wetness in the rhythm, no spatter, no tonal range. More than anything, it reminds me of sleet on a very cold day, when it almost bounces as it hits. The sun in the branches seems to be encouraging the needles to shed, because when I come to the more mature fir grove, dark, mysterious and shady, the shedding becomes quiet and still.
The path is even muddier here, and I continue to see footprints as I walk. As I keep my eyes out for them, I realize that the prints have changed. Now, there are not hoofprints; there are pawprints. I assume they of a dog, or a coyote, and wish I had learned more about tracking in my life. I follow the prints down to the flats, where they disappear for a while. Several years back, there was a cougar in these woods. I wonder if I could tell the difference between a dog print and that of a cougar. Probably not. I wonder if I should be scared. I stop, take a deep breath, and listen.
The air is full of birdsong and frogs. I hear the chattering of squirrels as they stock up on seeds for the winter. The wood around me is quiet, but I don’t feel any sense of alarm in the nearby energy. In front of me, in a shaft of sunlight, spider webs are strung between the branches like holiday decorations. They shine in the sun like silver.
As I head back up the trail, the sun over my left shoulder, I notice just how low in the sky it is. It never really gets very high anymore; mornings turn into afternoons without much of a high noon at all. What sun does shine on us in the Pacific Northwest in autumn is thin, without much strength, and liable to disappear before you know it. In fact, as the gate comes into view, I see an imposing steel cloudbank coming down the ridge. The wind picks up a little, and I am glad of my timing. I will be home before the rain begins. Sure enough, as I pick up my computer to write down my thoughts, the rain sweeps like a curtain through the neighbors yard and into ours, and I get a chance to compare the sound of it falling to pattering sounds of the fir needles on my walk.
