reclamation

Somewhere beneath the languid water thin strands of transparent nylon strands hooked to rocks and fallen trees still slowly wave to the sky with the steady undertow.  Fish shuttle past these artificial flanges that to a naked eye blend in to the surroundings, but in actuality remains firmly not part of the natural world around it.  It is other.  It is bound by the forces that surround it, bound to its environment, but not one with it.

The lakes surface denies the universe beneath it, dark waters ripple with light; the sky and the shoreline reflected in its glassy mirror and shattered with every movement of the liquid.  The trees that surround it loom, each individual blurring into the one next to it and the one next to that one until they cease to be trees and become forest.  They are a whole made up of individuals, dense and protective.  Like the mirror of the lake's surface, they are a shield to the world of the forest.  Dark and mysterious, after passing only meters inside their maze there is nothing else but maze:  more forest, more mystery, more shield.

With no movement, no sound, sounds begin to multiply.  Twigs snap.  Leaves rustle.  A bird hops along a branch, another flies through the air.  A chipmunk scampers along the ground, pausing, looking up and around, scampers some more, stops and sniffs the air, its eyes dart around some more.  It picks up an acorn that has fallen from a tree.  Off it runs, under one fallen branch and up another.  It darts down the side of a tree and into a bunch of leafy brush and then it's gone.  The sound and the movement disappear, but all is not silent.  Things fall and things are picked up again.

Further still into the forest, through the trees, there is a gentle slope of a hill.  The terrain is similar but declining into a valley, hidden in the shield.  The birds flying above can see it, they can map its terrain.  The birds know the curve it takes after 300 meters, they know where it widens and narrows, and they know where it is grassy and bare and where it becomes so thick with trees that they cannot see the ground.  Following the the bend 300 meters along a crick begins.  The water doesn't actual begin flowing from there, but that is the first place in the valley where it flows above ground.  It will widen and flow into the lake on one side and emerge from aquifers underground on the other.  The lake and the aquifers are connected by some porous rock underground, so the cycle of the water continues endlessly, constantly flowing into itself.

Climbing up the hill and venturing deeper into the forest, the trees again break wide open into a field.  The field is covered in tall grass that waves gently in the breeze, drifting to and fro, rippling like the water in the lake.  The lake of grass is equally deceptive, masking wildlife under its soft surface.  Mice dart along the dirt floor, collecting food and bits of this and that for shelters.  Snakes slither along the same dirt floor seeking out the mice.  Deer leap through the tall strands of green and gold fingers, traveling from one side of the field to the other.

Following the deer path back into the forest and zigzagging through the trees.  It is narrow and periodically along its winding, well worn track are tiny dark pellets and followed further are grasses and leaves beat flat to the ground where the deer has bedded down.  In another time of the year there would be scratches and worn patches on the sides of trees where the bucks have rutted, rubbing antlers against wood.  Sometimes antlers against antlers as well.  A wolf, with other wolves, sniff along this path.  The track the deer, the deer flees and fights and eventually becomes food for the low grey beasts patrolling the forest floor.  The wolves tear the flesh away from the carcass, eating fast and then moving away from the group to vomit up the quickly obtained meat to enjoy the dinner slower this second time.

Past this dinner site, through another thicket of trees is another hill.  On the side of the hill is a cave, torn out of the dirt and rock by animals, water, and time.  In this cave is a bear and her cubs.  Past the cave is more trees, more forest shield.  Meters pass, kilometers, and then a break in the trees, a split in the shield.  Pavement runs, slicing the forest with it's blacktop surface streaked with white and yellow lines, faded by time.  The blacktop is pitted and cracked, rain slowly working at it, cutting it like it cut the forest.

All along the blacktop are metal posts.  The posts are evenly spaced with signs on them.  Following the posts, the signs eventually terminate in a destination; buildings, towns, cities.  Like the nylon strands, these are rooted in the ground.  Like the artificial flanges these are not part of nature.  Water works at them from above and below.  The ground sprouts grass and trees, working from below.  Eventually they will crumble.  Perhaps they won't disappear, but the forest will shield them too.  The grasses will cover them.  The water will hide them.