leaves of bliss

I learned to love trees when I was a young yellow headed girl, singing songs to myself in piles of leaves. I smell crunch, crackle delicious woodsmoke, wet moss and earthy overtones. Smells so good deep in that pile of leaves I want to taste it. Put a leaf in my mouth; dry crackle crunch ughh, I leave you to decomposition. Smiling, satisfies the olfactory, I am content letting you crunch deliciously underneath me.

I want to sleep on a bed of leaves. Old worn yellow holy blanket, brought out for such ocassions as gathering fallen leaves, slung over mom's shoulder like a wild Santa Claus retreating to the woods edge. She piles them at the feet of their owners. Before they are deposited out again, I lie my head on the blanket, my bed the crunch pile of partially rotted tree debris, smelling ripe as the shedding Earth, soft as a yellow blanket.

I find something else out about the trees. In them are holes where animals can live. Baby animals crying for days because their mamma has gone away and they are hungry. My dad found two raccoons like that. Curled up in his grey flannel, their eyes barely open he carries them home for me to look at. I learn how to nurture them. We name them Sister Bear and Brother Bear after the Berenstein Bears. I bottle feed them in the screen porch as the crocuses poke their sleepy heads out of the moist Earth and the air gets warm.

When I'm older, I retreat from the house carefully when there is company, before anyone can notice I am gone. Running to the edge of the woods, I grip the uneven bark in my soft palms and hoist myself up into the crook to sit for a moment, relishing the safety of my high vantage point. In the thick green foliage of the late summer Oak I press my face to her side. I climb high as I can. I sit comfortable as I can, with my back against her trunk, my feet pushing the thick branches, legs taut. I whisper stories and hum tunes that I never remember until I am with her again.