Many years ago my left foot brushed the head of a copperhead coiled in a spot of sun. My brother Stanley and I were hiking a trail at Monkey Mountain nature preserve outside of Kansas City. Because it was still morning and a little cool, the copperhead was sluggish. Otherwise, it probably would have struck. I didn’t see it, but Stanley yelled at me after I had stepped over it. I had been looking for scarlet tanagers in the canopy. Now I look down more when I hike.
Last week Teckla and I camped at Washburne State Park on the central Oregon coast. We discovered a new trail called the Cape Lookout Trail. The trail was beautiful and weather warm, but Teckla had knee surgery about a month ago so I was looking down for hazards she should avoid. On one stretch of trail I noticed dusty glints of red in the duff and dirt of the trail. Looking more closely I saw they were fallen red huckleberries. I looked up and saw a delicate green huckleberry branch arching over the trail. Against a blue sky a dozen or so berries glowed like rubies in the morning sun.
Because we have encountered snakes on the trail and our knees have grown frail, we often look down more as we grow older. It is certainly wise to walk carefully, but we must still see the rubies in the sky and we must see the scarlet tanagers shooting like rockets in the green canopy. Sometimes the bit of glory seen in the dust of the trail should make us look up.
