The Serene Child

The Serene Child

Gloria Gordon

In the hills of West Virginia the little girl walks. She walks slowly with a sense of abandon. Her strawberry-blonde curls shine from the rays of sun that slip past the branches and leaves of the trees. Her blue eyes are turned down, head bowed as if in prayer, as she calculates each step so as not to trip over the fallen branches strewn about the forest floor.

She is not a pretty child nor is she very popular among her peers. At ten years old she is overweight for her age. Her shirt, stained and tattered, stretches tightly over her inflated belly. Her jeans hang far too short, showing the dull whiteness of her shins. Her shoes, hand-me-downs from her older sister, are browned from age and loose at the heels so that every step she takes sounds like horse hooves on pavement. Her shoulders slump as if she has the weight of the world resting upon them. Numerous freckles dot her face like stars in the night sky. Her teeth are overlapping, thus she smiles shyly with her lips pulled taunt over the rough terrain in her mouth. She comes to these woods to get away from reality, to hide from the cruelty of the world.

The vastness of the forest captivates the girl. She walks in awe of the smells, sounds, and sights emanating from this isolated wooded area. The forest smells of pine needles, of earthworms, of rotting wood, and faintly of honeysuckle blossoms. She hears the scamper of tiny paws as the woodland creatures search for food or nestle into their dens for naps. A light breeze whistles through the leaves making the leaves crackle softly as they rub against one another. Various birds sing their songs as if they know their melodies are soothing to the girl. There is peace in this forest; the kind of tranquility that city dwellers-- with their loud buses, car horns, and sirens-- rarely experience.

There is beauty all around, different from the Rockies, the Grand Canyon, and the beaches which the girl has never seen but heard of. The pine and fir trees leave the ground blanketed with needles. The few strands of sunlight, not ensnared by the dense foliage above, burnish the forest floor. Ivy reaches along the bed of the woods basking in the warm rays of the sun. There are berry bushes scattered around, the red berries contrasting with the green of the plants. The briar bushes stand forth menacingly, daring the girl to bend down and pick their pretty flowers.

The girl sits on a fallen log. She looks up into the trees and sees mourning doves roosting in an oak. She glimpses a robin flying from branch to branch as if looking for something lost. She gazes at a woodpecker pecking the trunk of a towering sycamore in search of termites. She sees squirrels balancing on limbs like acrobats on a high wire. Chipmunks, on the ground, scurry from tree to tree. The girl closes her eyes and relishes the caress of the gentle wind; she feels it tickle her arms causing goose bumps to rise on her skin.

The world seems so different down here below the trees and sky. If the girl were to climb to the top of one of the oaks she would see civilization. She would see Ford trucks without mufflers rumbling down the curving roads. She would see homes, some beautiful, but most small and sad like her own. She might even see Dupont plant, with its stacks reaching for the clouds, emitting clouds of their own that are probably not safe for the environment. Down here, tented by nature, the earth seems good, unblemished. The world beyond this forest seems like a distant planet.

The girl makes her way back to civilization, back to the pain of the world that gets filtered out of these woods. It is as if, when she walks to the line of trees that mark the entrance of the forest, she is allowed to come inside but everything else-- her problems, her worries, her insecurities-- gets left behind waiting for her return. She is sad; she doesn't want to leave her safe haven. She wishes she could stay, protected by the trees, forever. She walks through the threshold, back into society. She is overcome by her problems once more. Tomorrow though, tomorrow she will come back and know peace again.