There are many secret places in the windward foothills of the high Cascades which he comes to - almost always - seeking solitude and which he leaves - almost always - desiring to share and describe the good rewards he took from his private wanderings...
Today, he wants to paint an image of the spot - where the hemlock snags have long ago crashed down and begun the moulder of many decades - from which he noticed nubuck boletes craning their thick stems up into the morning shade...
Today, he wants to reveal that overgrown green skid-path where - scattered widely and with no discernible pattern or structure - he discovered that in the midst of maturity the orange-gold chanterelles were shriveling and parching to leather with the lack of autumn rains...
Today, he wants to describe the sucking rushy fringe of a series of old beaver ponds - layered one above the other beneath the Lookout Mountain cirque - where he managed to pick his last handful of fading wild blueberries and savor their late-harvest sur maturite character...
Today, he wants to confess the simple pleasure he felt in the expanse beneath Table Rock when - a few yards from the clearcut bracken-bed where the young elk fell - he plucked the first delicate yellowfeet of the season into his backpack before picking up the butcher's knife once more...
Today, he wants to sing at the wild beauty of his western homeland as it walks a tight-rope - caught in an exquisite state of indecision - between the clear chill nights of autumn and the warm sunlight days lingering over from a long lost summertime...
There are many things which have weighed upon his heart for all of this black October and many more are sure to add their full measure. But today is a good day...
Today, he wants to rejoice in the singular wonder of this creation and to know that it will last forever in the safe warm sinews of his heart...
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