The pages of July flip on as the midsummer sky transforms from one shade of blue into another; azure, pastel and powder puff.
The sounds, the sights and the movements of Appalachian Mountain Country casts a spell over the wandering walker. In no more than a few minutes we are comfortably in tune with every living thing.
In the tiniest of things to the biggest there is life. Some no bigger than grains of dust yet full of color and scent. If we had not seen the miracle would we have believed in the spirit of the seed?
"All trees are alike", someone said
somewhere, onetime. When we are in tune with our senses we can experience many individual
ways among all living things. There is as much difference between individual trees and
flowers and bush and grass as there is among we who people the earth.
No matter how much we think things are the same, when we "stop to smell the flowers" we realize the uniqueness of each and every living thing.
Milkweed abounds all around Mountain Country byways. Their full-blossomed tops are all a flutter with butterflies. They respond to the bee's hum and at times it is difficult to tell which is the flower and which is the insect. It is easy enough to believe in the magic that sees a butterfly as a flower of the air.
Copyright © 1988, 1999 Barbara A. Smith and John G. Hipps. All rights reserved.
This essay was first published July 20, 1988 in the Free-Press Courier, Westfield, Pennsylvania.