Imagining The Untouchable...

I wandered the conifer stands for more than an hour supported by bloodied legs – cut on the tips of the broken branches which littered the forest floor – and searched for invisible ruffed grouse, for as-yet-unborn white chanterelles, for jammy saskatoons which had already been devoured by hungry jays and roaming black bears. After giving up the hunt, I paused to stand and watch the reflected heat of this late summer Sunday afternoon send up curling waves to bend the daylight across each dusty knuckle of the foothills and – listening as well – found that the only sound I could hear was the snap-crack of a grasshopper's legs leaping up from the bracken which surrounded me. Over the brink of the canyon, a world yawned wide which appeared as parched as my soul and as primed for fire as each beat of my heart, a world in which – at every clearcut window – the highlands revealed rusty taupe and leather hues as they awaited autumn’s first raindrops.

Though nothing I saw or heard was different than my expectations, my soul felt differently than it had before. Most times, this wild perch above the canyon would feel like natural meditation – a clean spring which irrigates my imagination – but not on this particular afternoon, not at this peculiar day. Removing the straps of my surplus rucksack and leaning the barrel of my shotgun alongside a fallen log, I felt myself sighing repeatedly as though the act of sighing might purge persistent old doubts and – by some magical spell – set life on a new path, a satisfying path. Out there - twenty some miles beyond town - at the edge of the western mountains, I just sat my canvas-clad ass on a flat rock, closed the shutters of my eyes, imagined the familiar face of a dream whom I’ve never met, indulged in some half-materialized dream whose score seemed equal parts unexpected joy, hopeless lament.