A Thoreauvian Hike

A carnival for the senses.  With my arms splayed in a balancing act, I tiptoe daintily along the path, careful not to fall.  Look up, silly girl, my conscience urges.  Let your feet do the walking for you and you will not stumble.  Allow nature to speak to nature.  Look up, stupid girl, and enjoy this fair circus.  Obeying, I lift my head and breathe in the dusty afternoon.  Like a caravan of fantastic and colorful beasts, we tromp through nature, letting her fill us to the brim.  The trickling stream is a pipe organ, droning softly as we approach and, like skittish ponies, tentatively cross.  I find my footing and leap from callous stone to the moist earth, absorbing the shock in my knees.  Gnarled roots form a staircase, my hand sliding along the trunk's rough bark for stability.  As my boots click noisily upon a rounded rock, I wish I was barefoot to become one with mud and moss.  A fantasy of becoming a waif of the soil.  The earth fills my nostrils, a sensuous musk.  My skin has become damp from the perverse sun's rays which angle through the oak leaves, denying shade.  When I turn my head, hair whips into my face and sticks there.  Wiping the tresses away with the back of my wrist, I look up at the searing orb condemningly.  Bushes fold across the path like two wrinkled hands in prayer and I brush them to the side, feeling their fibers with my fingertips' caress.  Calla lilies lay nestled among reeds like four white doves, silent as they watch our parade stagger by from the underbrush.  Ducking beneath a fallen tree, I can see moths dancing among the dust motes like fairies, brings of another world that we have invaded.  Foolish humans.  A crow taunts us as we cross through and then falls silent, its companion responding in agreement before alighting to another branch to view our motley procession.  They watch with black eyes, shining like polished beads, and are satisfied at having broken our silence.