a walk of flame

just returned from a walk. i watched the sun's last flames fade out of the treetops. i felt, more than saw, the dusk settle under the trees, in the folds of the hills, and out over the flat blue water. the air chilled quietly as i walked, the bugs swarmed sporadically, and the day folded over itself as it lay down to rest.

i saw a frog, a tiny brown frog, only as long as the last joint of my pinky finger. almost 2mm long, and less wide. i have never before seen a frog that small, that brown, that delicate. i caught it, held it in my hand, watched it in the increasing dimness, and it didn't leave until i put my finger right next to it; then it jumped down to the brown ground, where it blended it almost perfectly. somehow seeing and holding that frog refreshed me. it reduces the feeling of living trapped in civilization, surrounded by busy people and white walls. i touched life today. i need to do that more often, but life cannot be conjured out of thin air. i must walk in ways where it lives, then hope that in my stillness and calmness it will allow itself to be noticed and perhaps even caught. wildness is something wonderful. it helps restore perspective; it calms, soothes and heals; it teaches and corrects.

oh, how much men praise civilization! and how they destroy wildness when they can! but a pinch of the wild is necessary to maintain tameness; a thing has no comparative value unless it is compared, unless the other alternatives are known. if a person sees, hears, knows no hint of wildness, they won't even be able to properly appreciate tameness, much less understand why or how it is important. i don't know what i'm talking about, really. but give me a touch of the wild - or more than a touch, a bucketful - give this to me in everything. don't hand me something completely tame; wildness gives the wonder, the excitement. nothing truly beautiful is thoroughly tame. that wildness co-existing with the tame is part of what makes it so wondrous. after all, there is nothing spectacular about tameness co-existing with tameness, is there? but wild and tame, crazy and sane... beauty is wild.