How strange that Nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude! — Emily Dickinson

Of all of nature’s virtues, we’d do well to emulate her patience. In this hurried world of never enough time or things, a simple look around me here brings my often chaotic thought processes to a halt. I cannot look across the slope or across the road and not notice that the rocks that were there yesterday are still there, having moved not an inch or appearing to be in any great hurry to go anywhere. So are the trees right where they were yesterday, and barring a strong gale, most will still be there tomorrow, weaving their complex patterns of bare branches against the cloudy afternoon sky.

When I first came to this place, there was no moss at all on the slope above the front yard. There was nothing there but the gravel left over from when the huge bite was taken out of this hillside to make it flat enough on which to build. Over time, my late partner and I landscaped it, putting down mulch and planting low evergreens and other perennials there. While I’ve sadly neglected it since his death, nature has happily and obligingly intervened, as is her wont. What was once a rough, ugly edge is now draped in moss that keeps getting denser and spreading more each year. The back steps leading down to the garage are also getting mossy, making them look even more as though they are part of the hillside.

Nothing in nature is hurried, and everything happens in its own good time and at its own pace. Yet no process is ever left unfinished or half-done, nor is anything left unused for long. Unhealthy trees eventually topple, becoming shelter or sustenance for other creatures. Flowers bloom, fade and die, setting the stage for fruit or seed development. Rain and snow quench the earth and return to the clouds from which they came in an endless cycle of rebirth.

One day last week, I found a half-dead mouse in the yard that had obviously become prey for one of my cats. I picked it up and cradled it against my hand as it struggled, clinging to life. While I could see no sign of external injury, I knew that it doesn’t take much to cause damage to such a delicate creature’s internal workings, and that even my own gentle probing was probably more than it could handle. I placed the mouse in a cloth-lined tin box and brought it inside where it was warmer. When I checked later, however, I found that my efforts had been in vain and saw then how tenuous the hold on life is for some lesser creatures, and how much more of a struggle it is for them to survive in a world that is not always kind.

Though there is certainly no possibility of there ever being a rodent shortage in this world, getting that close to the whisper-thin line between life and death gave me pause. It is as present and immediate in the animal realm as it is in ours. Life is life, no matter if it inhabits the body of mouse or man. And once the spark is snuffed out in one tiny body, it bursts forth in another and usually without much aplomb unless it occurs at a more personal human level.

Nature’s quiet, slow-yet-steady persistence never fails to amaze me. I was able to turn from this one small loss knowing that, beyond the boundaries of this yard, life perseveres in all that grows and lives in these woods. All that’s required of me is my own patience and understanding as all these wonders continue to unfold around me each and every day without fail.

— Rachel Lovejoy, a freelance writer living in Lyman, can be reached via e-mail at rlovejoy84253@roadrunner.com.