Sunday, though close to the fallow deer of last week, we saw no more. Unexpectedly little birdsong in the woods too, leaving me thinking that the colder air might have surpressed some of the earlier enthusiasm. We walked well-made paths; initially downwards on fine gravel, sorted by the passage of waters that had left streaks of sorted stones from chips to sand grains. On the valley floor, undulated only by the necessity to keep most of the moving water in a single channel, the paths were more serious aggregate, stones and clay mud, to support forestry vehicles and the trickle of cycles.
The corners of the paths greeted us either with new draughts or with beams of sunlight to bask in briefly and restore circulations. I watched a disturbed wood-ants' nest for long enough to see a few ants move; laborious.
These paths have echoes of our young children. Here they stood to listen to woodpeckers, on this bridge stood for pooh-sticks; we saw a wide bodied darter or a pond skater. Alone, the walk is more rhythmic, but less endowed with memory or laughter. Some trees they knew are now fallen; the fallen they clambered are now dust. The cool, still pools are the same, but the molecules they paddled are now scattered to the four corners
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