They hunted mushrooms in the early spring among down of leaves and fallen trees. Later, they returned picking wildflowers from prairie that touched woods’ edge. In summer, after rains, they walked the creeks in search of arrowheads and relics from cultures before; and in fall they walked the woods, taking in the colored scene and returned after with nothing but the memory.
The woods—their searches, hunts and finds—while they enjoyed them all, they were premise to a greater reason and enjoyment: to be alone together. They were reasons to escape, to depart from sight and care together into disappearance for a while; a place to gather as well as steal quiet glances and kisses in open light of the world, to know the feel of the other’s touch and hold—hands in walk, stabilizing support traversing obstacles, and other ways when reasons rose; to make beds of blanket and autumn leaves that crackled until worn and smothered flat, or in made depressions of prairie summer prairie grasses—wildflowers framing and sight of halo crown that opened to fullness of sun and light and blue above.
A wild innocence never lost even as they aged and children beget from beds of leaves and prairie; when grandchildren arrived and the woods were taller, grander, but also more sparse and lonely than in youth. They told how the woods had changed, where the prairie used to reach, the yards of saplings becoming tall as woods grew outward into open; when they shared of joys made and found across a lifetime in search of forage, flowers, and arrowheads after rains that ran the creeks washing new finds free. Of the rest, they saved as they had always done, only between them.
Then in old age, when they could no longer move and walk as they had so much of life, they rested in their home. There was a shelf of memories, arrowheads and other memories, and when children and grandchildren were near and season of woods was right, they visited bringing gifts of their own wooded pursuits: mushrooms in the spring, flowers later on, and children eager, too, to listen to old stories of how, before, the woods had been.
Blessings of a wild innocence that never died between until reach of this life’s end when, after, the woods remained; more open, sparse and lonely than in lifetimes before.