SPRING RAIN, ALONE IN THE MIST
One moment, I swear that a canoe is passing somewhere close, as I can so clearly hear the thrust and then ease of the paddle against the current. It’s impossible, of course, because the creeks that dissect the Bog are tiny, and the ponds are shallow, dotted with the hazards of fallen trees and large clumps of earth, matted grasses from some previous flood and erosion.
If you stand here long enough today, in this dimly lit environs, you will swear to have heard footsteps coming toward you along the trail, and thought someone, somewhere close, had whispered your name. In the mist and low light in the thickets, you might see a ghost....a shadowy image wavering between the trees and crossed branches. At other times you will only sense a soft, regular heartbeat within, and the touch of damp cold against your skin. There will be an unsettling silence. Not a trace of wind or sound of even a single raindrop falling onto a leaf, or exploding into the stillness of the tiny black pool of water to your left or right. As the mist becomes heavier, as it blows off the expanse of Muskoka Bay, it will become very haunted in this Bog, as if an English moor, where one might expect, at any moment, to see the silhouette of Sherlock Holmes himself, in hunt of the elusive Hound of the Baskervilles. The mood will change many times today as the rainfall becomes heavier, and this fog moves further inland by late morning. Now it is a feast for the imagination, to be standing here pondering what other mysteries and supernatural events might be revealed.
Even after a half hour of wandering this Bogland, I can still hear the sound of that phantom canoe, its hull trickling the water along its invisible traverse......the water droplets falling from the tip of the paddle blade. I don’t know what has been making these familiar sounds yet I know it can not be what I imagine. It is probably a blocked-up cataract, and a diversion of water down a narrow artery, making this pushing, tinkling sound. With the high ridges of matted grasses, and mounds in the landscape created by old stumps, it’s impossible to see all the little creeks and waterfalls that exist throughout this wetland acreage. It is a haven for anyone with a vivid imagination.
There have been occasions in the last few minutes, when the wind has picked up and sent a spray of icy rain over this ridge, causing the voyeur to button up his coat and pull down the hat that was almost raised in flight. A stronger curl of wind tightens across the lake, and soon it will push up over the rock shoreline, and rush across these pine ridges and unthawing bogland. It will push away the rest of the fog and reveal the brown, barren ground of early spring.
Even in the most adverse weather, there is a splendor to these woods, this lowland, that I cherish with every mortal fibre. Even amidst its dull colorations, and matted grasses and fallen over trees, there is a beauty of life that overpowers shallow observation, and narrow, unimaginative contemplation. It is the rebirth of a season, and it is our own time for resurgence and discovery, and this path will take me from here to there in adventure, around the year, till once more, a winter snow will capture my footprints in its icy mantle.
I feel a tug at my coat sleeve and look to see who beckons. I turn quickly to witness who it is that whispers my name. I will swear to having seen some other watcher in the woods, waft as a mist down a distant path into the basin, and I will tremble a wee bit, about my lonely, vulnerable vigil in this grandly haunted place. I trust that some artist will stumble upon this place one day soon, a poet wandering aimlessly along life’s path, a musician plucking at some stringed instrument, and find this tiny parcel of nature a perfectly enchanted place in which to muse....., to create and be delighted by the convergence of all natural and supernatural qualities and quantities.....as if at the very invitation of C.S. Lewis to explore and taste the fruit not forbidden.