Leafy Summit

December Challenge / Viewpoint / Far Away
The trees are stripped almost bare, but what beautiful sunshine!

My novel contains a scene in which treetops play an important role.
For those who are wondering what the heck I'm writing about, here's a sample.

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(From a novel in progress. Started long ago, publication seems far away.)

Tall trees—eucalyptus, redwood, and pine—ring the field. The fragrance of the eucalyptus grove beside the track scents the air, drawing her eyes to the crazily peeling trunks and mottled bark, then upward to the leafy summit. Her running shoes crunch the cinders as she considers the thorn in the flesh that no amount of effort has been sufficient to remove.

Words she hasn’t planned to say form themselves in her mind.

God ... if you exist ... please help me.

She prays a single arrow prayer, simple and direct.
Her prayer awakens and surprises her.
She didn’t decide on the spur of the moment to pray—the prayer simply issues forth as if she is being played like an instrument.

She has not tried to pray since she was ten. The seed planted by her Piano Teacher at last finds the right conditions to grow and pushes toward the light. Now an invisible force from above the eucalyptus grove is inviting her to give prayer a second chance, here on the University track with her legs pumping and lungs heaving and eyes lifted.


God... Her thoughts revisit the words her mind has formed as she rounds the bend of the track.

God, I don’t know if you exist. But if you exist, please help me. I’m at the end of my rope.

That’s the way she forms her prayer, but it isn’t quite right.

She no longer doubts that God exists. She has been living with the knowledge that God is somehow present in the fog that rolls over the foothills, in the stiff waxy flowers that drop every spring from the kurrajong bottle tree beside her cottage, in the golden carpet of leaves in the fall, in the stars that crowd the night sky, in the scent of manzanita. She’s sure God made all this. If there’s more to God, she hasn’t pondered it. What she knows seems enough. There is some purpose to everything that exists. There is a majesty, a nobility, a genius behind everything that exists.

What she means by her conditional statement is, God, if you hear me ... if you know me ... if you mean me well ....

It is said that in its development the human embryo recapitulates the evolution of the species. In her dawning spirituality she is recapitulating the development of human religion and has arrived at the point where she is willing to shout into the void, hoping that an answer might come.

(To be continued.)
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I keep editing, over and over. I can't believe it, but as I posted this brief passage and formatted it I found several things I will change. I'm afraid I'm tweaking prose as if it were poetry. I wonder if I'm just scared to let go of it.

Well, here it is, for better or for worse.