Land of Enchantment

The path where I walk in the coolness of early morning runs beside a stream at the bottom of steep banks.  It is water diverted from the Rio Grande River, which people who live here use  for irrigating their fields.  It has been here for so long  that carp spawn here in spring, and  the water is thick and roiling with their sinewy thrashing. Now, in full summer, there are no fish at all .

The morning shadows are deep and sharp, and the sun has not yet reached the burning intensity which it will achieve in an hour or so.  A slight breeze ruffles the leaves of the cottonwoods like the sound of waves on a beach; birds chatter as I pass, and prairie dogs chirp  warning cries  as they scurry across the path and disappear into their holes.  Cattle egrets, snowy and elegant, lift soundlessly into the periwinkle sky.  I pass a twisted tree, long since dead, its bare branches piercing the sky, where sometimes a red-tailed hawk perches, its plaintive call cutting through the air causing a storm of prairie dog warnings. Further on,I hear the deep honk of  a bullfrog, then a splash.

This morning music greets me as I pass, confirming that small life teems around me, and I am a part of it, all of it,  the earth beneath my feet, and the sky above me, all quivering with vitality. At moments like this, it is enough just to be.