Two forever moments

  A Grotto
  Don A. Campbell
    There is a place in the deep shaded woods where a rock ledge, which feels older than time, thrusts up from the forest floor.  On its south face, when the sun is angled just right, a ray of light fills a natural grotto formed by a cleft in the rock.  Deep within, clinging to a wall of gray-weathered stone grows a cactus.  It is totally out of its natural place, yet it is fitting in this sanctuary.
    The presence of this cactus tells me this grotto is known by someone with the soul of a poet.  For the cactus did not come here by accident. 
    In all the years I have come to visit, I have seen no sign of who might have planted it, or that they have returned to tend it.  Yet it thrives.  So, often when the sun is just right, I come to admire this sanctuary. 
    In this place someone created a moment of beauty that will last in memory forever.  Here, someone was inspired by the eternal which guides and stirs the artist that lurks in the soul of all of us. 
    Having experienced the quiet magic of this grotto, I yearn for for the eternal muse of such places to touch me.  I know that had I been so moved, had I created this place, I would feel no need to return.  For it is the function of moments of beauty to be timeless and complete.
    This grotto, like a poem once written, becomes an eternal moment that enfolds its self to become unbounded.

    Forever Moments
    Don Campbell
    I love watching the dappled light and shadow of clear swift flowing water, of looking into the realm of quick flashing silver shapes and golden rays of penetrating sunlight.  I am captured by the rippling, flickering shadows cast by waves twisting sunshine into a wonder world of illusion.  I love tangy scent of the cedars on the shore and the wet sound that a swift flowing stream makes as it bumps rocks and gurgles its way over, under and around the world it has created for itself.  A river is a living thing.  It is never the same yet it is constant regardless of its moods.
    The Wolf River in northern Wisconsin is one of my places.  It is an escape yet a returning home.   Standing waist deep in its cool water before the sun has cleared away the morning mist, is a world far removed from the noise and clamor of the too tightconfines of civilized life.
    My best morning on the Wolf was simple.  For a few moments it was even too perfect a time to fish.  I had worked my way to mid-river and had stopped to look into the water and soak in the sound and feel of it pushing against the legs of my waders.  In that moment of solitude I noticed a flicker of movement.  As I watched the cedar green wood along the shore, a doe brought two fawns to the water’s edge to drink.   A man in the water is not a common sight and doesn’t make the sounds of the hunt.  So she showed no recognition or fear. 
    I watched her lead her young into the river and I watched them explore the sensation of flowing water.   She kept them near the shore as she dipped her muzzle, eyes deep, into the river to graze on the succulent water grasses.  As I stood there, a beaver emerged from under a bank just up stream from the doe and within seconds of her swimming clear of the bank, four kits came scooting  out after her.  As the kits frolicked, the fawns tried to wade into deeper water to investigate.  But the doe gave a sharp grunting snort to call them back.  Then her ears went up and she flicked her tail as she turned to look down river.  The fawns turned to look as she did.
    It took me a moment to hear what caused her caution.  Then came the steady hard flap of large wings.  I twisted slowly to see the dark shape of an Osprey emerge out of the mist.  Even with its seeming four foot wing span it was struggling to gain altitude as it worked its way up the river channel.  It was carrying a trout so big that I would have been happy with the bragging rights.  I watched the mist swirl around it as the slow almost fluid sound of its wings seemed to soak into the woods and water.  With a sharp pistol like slap of its tail, the beaver and then kits dove and vanished into their warren under the river bank.   The doe whistled and her tail went up into a bright white danger flag and she and the fawns jumped in arching bounds into the woods.  In a few  moments the Osprey and its catch vanished into the mists and I was alone with the river.  Yet I knew I wasn’t alone.  From their places in a hidden world, life watched me while I invaded their quiet place. 
    I didn’t catch many trout that morning.  I didn’t need to;  I had lived a perfect and forever moment.