Sweet Wonderment of Nature

I'm blessed to live right next to a local park with a creek meandering through it. Those who know me on Facebook have seen my various photos and videos from my meanderings there. Here is a poem I wrote a couple of days ago after one such meander.

The light of day
The dark of night
The rich brown loaminess of the soil
The verdant green of the grass
The rich textured shades of browns and greens of the trees
The amber waves of grain
The vibrant reds, blues, purples, yellows and oranges
The rainbow of the flowers and fruits of Nature!

The ebb and flow, fast and slow of the water
Down the channel, crashing over the rocks

The rut of the deer
The cry of the hawks
The skitter of the slithery things in the brush
The red-winged blackbird perched on a tule rush

Ah, the sweet wonderment of Nature!

The Bear in the Stream

The photo above is the impetus for the poem today - or at least part of it. I took myself for a hike in Hidden Falls Regional Park in Auburn CA today. It was noisy and peaceful, as only nature can be.

The Bear in the Stream

The sound of water calms me
as it rushes over the rocks

The quiet of the trail
envelops me as I trod along
listening to the sound of the water
sometimes faint, sometimes strong
as the trail winds along

The occasional bird calls
out overhead
and unseen critters rustle
in the bushes on the edge of the trail

I pass a small stream
with a rock that looks like
a bear's head in it.

I stop and take a picture of it,
then look around
knowing bears don't come down this low.

Or do they?

No, they don't, at least not today.

Today was simply water and trail.