Homecoming, to the river and woods, the dogs and everything that has bloomed or browned since I left a week ago. All spring, I have followed the red maple wings, marveling at their complex beauty, rosy fresh glow, the promise and serendipity of their fanciful landings on plants and earth – wherever they please. And, this morning, as I walk and walk and walk, reconnecting with this land I love near the Charles River, I find this pair of wings, dangling from a branch, past its peak, browned and even more beautiful than it was when fresh and new, rosy pink and riding the wind. A little sunlight through seed is enlightenment.

Having been in the hands of a master storyteller all week, I miss the entrancing engine of Martin Shaw's voice in my ears. I find a podcast interview recording, and listen, for a very small part of my walk. It's too much. He's saying so much with every sentence I cannot take it all in and hold it all at once. Instead, I turn it off, I keep walking, I keep meeting all the life and death and promise and failure of these woods, this river, and I let my soul be still and satisfied, grateful and engorged.

All photos and text copyright Kelly DuMar 2017 unless otherwise attributed