Cascade Head
by Carol A. Hayes
Medford, OR
The narrow gravel road winds up and away from the highway through tall timber and shadows that come together above the road. Through the open car window, the clean smell of fir and moss begins its magic on my soul. Here and there birds flit through slanting sun, their wings are jewels as is their song.
Free at last from the confines of the car, the trail beckons me forward. I walk silently up the path, so as to hear the peace, to absorb the vitality of the very air. Subtlety upward the trail goes, through Salal and Alder. A great hollow tree with moist and dewy ferns inside marks a crossroads. The path directly ahead seems to take me with it, up ever up. My mind clears and empties with the total feeling of walking and breathing, walking and breathing. Stairs fashioned from logs and earth rise steeply up the hillside, vine maple whispers to me as I pass, the air cools. Suddenly I step out of the forest into a sea of grass chest high that moves in waves that rasp and rustle against my parka. The wind whips tears into my eyes, my hands numb. Gradually the height of the grass decreases and the trail becomes a mere track through the restless land sea. I am at the top of the world, and I am held transfixed. Far below lies the great Pacific, blue and limitless, wrapping itself around the rocky headlands, caressing the beaches with white foam that speaks of crashing sounds I cannot hear. The sky is around me, mountain wraiths of fog suddenly enfold me, and I am closer to the sky than to the sea.
As I walk upon this place, my personhood drops away. I am not mother or daughter, sister or wife, neither young nor old. I am alive as the grasses are alive, as the sea is alive, as the very mountain is alive. I am as much an essence as the wind that strips me of my everyday reality and lifts me high above human entanglements. I belong upon this earth and through its splendid beauty I am free.
