The Mountain Sapling

The sun rose over the eastern mountains, and it breathed life into those quiescent forests. The deck of the house looked over one such wood, and once awake I ventured into the crisp newness of that summer day. The weather was unusually cold for this time of year in the North Carolinian mountains, and as I opened that fogged sliding glass door the cold overcame my Floridian bones. I gazed into the vast forest, which lay in front of me, and the silence was only broken by the recurring shriek of a jay. Regardless, it was peaceful. Later that morning I would venture down that mountain, following only the faint babbling of a brook. I knew not where it lay, only that it beckoned me.

My life at this point was as normal as a teenager’s could be, and thus the solace of a silent wood was more than enough to coax my somnolent body out of its warm bed. The oaks and maples that grew in this forest had done so for hundreds of years. What made them so enduring, so constant? I knew not what it was, but I gained a new admiration for them as I journeyed through that those woods. The river’s flow became increasingly loud as I headed farther and farther down the slope. Then I saw it. I saw something then that will forever remain a vivid image in my mind. There, on the forest floor, lay a rotting oak that no man’s hands had felled, and growing forth from the death and decay of that ancient oak was a sapling, which had found root inside the once hulking trunk.

I must have stared at that sapling for ten minutes, awestruck by the resilience of nature. Here, death brought forth life, a life that sustains so much. As I stared at the sapling, my mindset was shattered by the piercing shriek of the jay in the trees above. I looked above me, to the blackened canopy, but he was no where to be seen. He lived high up in a nearby tree’s branch, which without the seed of another tree would not be standing today. Death, birth, life, it was all so simple yet so meaningful that the image of the green sapling amid the ancient arboreal decay remains vivid to this day.

The sound of the river’s flow beckoned me forth, and leaving the sapling behind I searched for that allusive waterway. Walking through the woods has always been cathartic for me. I had walked through so many backwoods. They all seemed to meld together, in doing so they became not individual forests with individual trees but an amalgamated mass. This forest was no different than the rest. If this was the case, however, why do I remember vividly that sapling, that jay’s call, and that river of life, which lay below me, unspoiled by the hands of civilization?

The intensity of the river’s flow grew steadily as I headed farther down the hill. The poplars, which I would come to find lined the riverbank for miles, prevented any eyes to gaze upon the river. Their green leaves were like thousands of hands reaching out to cover a furtive masterpiece, lest it be regarded any less by the boy who at present stood before them, a suppliant to their will. Headstrong, I separated the branches before me and saw a virgin river, untrodden by any foot.

When I had first heard the faintest babbling of the river, a precognitive image immediately entered my mind. I had fly-fished rivers in North Carolina before. They were primarily in state parks or off the side of a road, and thus they had one intrinsic thing in common. They had all been touched before by civilization. Maybe that was what touched me the most, the fact that I was the first to look upon this river. In my head I envisioned a swiftly flowing river dotted by granite rocks, fallen branches, and moss covered boulders. The rivers, which I had fished before, were wide enough so that I could not cast across them; thus this is what I expected. However, when I peered beneath those pliant branches I saw a small river, whose uniqueness remains with me to this day.

The river flowed at least ten feet beneath me. From the steep precipice, roots were visible as were many small rocks. It had carved a route through the hillside through the ages, the ebb and flow perpetually eroding the bank. Those behemoth stones I saw before me dwarfed the boulders I had imagined. There were so many boulders, so many stones strewn about the shore, and I could only imagine the power needed to move such massive objects. And the little stream flowed through them. The river was nothing in comparison to those colossal boulders, yet it once had the force to move them and tame their once jagged sides. They stand here now as a testament to the power of nature.

I know now that I was destined to have found that one rock which made it possible to step foot onto the riverbed. The boulder I speak of was a ways down the bank. The only feature, which distinguished it from the others, was that its height was greater than theirs. This being so, I was able to jump from the safety of the precipice onto its granite apex. From there the descent to the bottom was relatively easy, as I stepped from rock to rock until I met with solid ground. At eye level, the wonders of the river were even greater than those once perceived from above. I stood at the base of the boulders for a lifetime, if only I could soak in the majesty of the wilderness for one fleeting moment.

The river was so very picturesque that it remains as a panoramic painting in my memory. With my back to the boulders from whence I had come there was a waterfall to my right and an island to my left. On the island grew a solitary oak. It was young, and the rocky ground in which it grew seemed to have stunted its growth. The branches seemed to reach towards the heavens and their leaves fluttered in the fleeting wind. From the trunk two smaller trees issued forth. It was the Baucis and Philemon of the mountains. The river flowed to my left, and in looking up towards the waterfall I could see no other oaks. I looked back then at the fledgling oak on the island, and I wondered how far that acorn had traveled until it reached it’s final destination.

I waded through the swiftly flowing water to the teardrop shaped island, which was large enough only to hold my person and the oak itself. I looked down at the roots and saw that they had cracked the stone while growing. Marveling at the strength of the little tree, an image of the mountain’s steep granite faces, having once been blasted by dynamite. I stood on that little island for hours ensconced by the aura of the wilderness. The untouched, untamed beauty of that river and sapling will forever remain as vivid testaments to the power of nature upon a person’s soul.