I went into the woods today to walk, to see what there was to see and to hear what there was to hear. As I took the first step across the doorsill that connects the bustling world to that of the serene and still, I hung my subjectivity on a nearby branch like an old sweater and went in. I came that day not to attach meaning to what I would discover there, but simply to experience it and bask in the simple joy and honest truth of its existence.

I saw light filtered and dispersed by leaves, most crimson or yellow now against the still-green of those trees that take a little longer to shed. The denuded branches of shrubs tangled over a fresh-water brook that snaked away into the deeper woods. Despite the signs designed to keep me out, I followed the brook, keeping a safe distance always from its spongy edges lest I disrupt some small community thriving there or disturb the freshet’s course. I dodged the low, weathered-bare branches of pines and moved others aside in order to pass. The air was warm but with a hint of the coolness that is to come, and tiny insects drifted along shafts of sunlight slanting in to the forest floor. The holy silence, save for the water bubbling as it negotiated obstacles or the occasional vehicle passing on the distant road, was my companion as I strayed farther in where only the resident creatures ever dare to venture.

I later emerged back out onto the road roughly half a mile or so from where I’d entered the woods and crossed to visit trees on the other side that ran up a slope so eroded as to be banked by nothing more than a long series of exposed roots. How little it would take to topple them, to send them to the fate others had already met as they succumbed to heavy rains that gradually wash away the soil in which they’d once stood fast. I climbed a small ridge and looked down over a gully and up toward an even higher plateau where the growth was so thick that no light at all managed to find its was through. As is so often the case in deep woods, trees and shrubs were tucked into this crevice in such a way that it created a sense of mystery as to what might lie beyond, to what secrets the earth keeps there.

I heard the hoarse call of a raven and watched its shadow pass over the canopy as it moved between me and the sun. Chickadees flew in their characteristically acrobatic way among the lower branches of trees and tall shrubs, their “dee-dee-dee” a music to my ears in the otherwise hushed place. Blue jays screamed from farther away, and a nuthatch clung face down to the bole of an old oak close by, searching the splits in the bark for sustenance. The breeze was light that day but strong enough to produce the soft soughing sounds of a song I have come to know as “Wind in the Trees” and whose performance no walk in the woods is ever complete without.

My trek ended in a soft shower of leaves falling from alders not far in from the road and the hoarse chatter of a grey squirrel scolding me from a nearby maple.

I left the woods to return to my life’s occupations and cares, remnants of the beauty, solitude and serenity clinging to me like tiny pronged seeds that will, I hope, provide me with much inspiration in the days to come.

— Rachel Lovejoy, a freelance writer living in Springvale, who enjoys exploring the woods of southern Maine, can be reached via email at rachell1950@metrocast.net.