Perfection

I’ve been out walking this week. If I leave the house early enough, a breeze keeps the air moving.

I’ve been noticing the trees. Each tree inhabits its own space, claims the area around it. Each tree projects its own aura, defines the character of its patch of ground. Here a tree is jaunty, there welcoming, like a greeter in church.

Each tree has its personality, its own nature. The rough bark, a vertical version of a dry and craggy landscape. Limbs feathered with delicate shoots of fern.

It is the limbs themselves I notice. The twists and sudden turns. The unexpected appearance of a bough. No one, I read somewhere once, ever suggests a tree would be more beautiful if one of its branches were higher or placed on the other side. A tree is appreciated for what it is.

Elsewhere I’ve read that this is God’s attitude toward us. In God’s eyes, the author writes, there is nothing wrong with us, and, moreover, never has been.

I count four nests in one tree. Somewhere, high up, an unseen bird sings.