I walked through a myrtle, sassafras and wattle rainforest last week and it was akin to swimming through green light. A rare clear day allowed the sun to penetrate the umbrella’d canopy and make translucent and reflective the many thousands of leaves it bounced off of on its way down to the forest floor. Such magic. Such a change from the wind blown and stunted trees found at Windgrove; trees, that although beautiful in their fiercely gnarled way, don’t posess the soft, moist green quality that emanates from within a rainforest.
The path was along the shore line of Lake St. Clair (the last section of the famous Overland Track). After taking the ferry the full length of the lake, where Sally hopped off and walked back 17 kilometers, I got off at Echo Point for the shorter 12 kilometer distance. The sign read that my portion of the walk would take three hours. It took me six. The knees were only a tiny part of my slowness as it was the green beauty I found myself immersed in that kept flooring me and to crawl along any faster was impossible. I just didn’t want to leave this bearable lightness of green. Most certainly, I felt like the bee in Basho’s poem:
The bee emerging
from deep within the peony
departs reluctantly
Posted by Peter Adams at 09:42 AM. Filed under: Beyond Windgrove •