The early spring sunlight is warm and penetrating as I rest here on the summit of this hillside. I look out upon this towny landscape, only recently free from its winter blanket of snow and not yet showing any indication of fresh vegetation.

There is only the brindled grass and in the distance a few leafless trees silhouetted against an empty sky.

It is absolutely still. The deep silence is only accentuated by the faint sound of a ghostly wind running its fingers through last years grass.

Above me the sky stretches from end to end, vast and undefined by even a single cloud: it is an ocean of blue air.

As I gaze into its depthless space a single raptor appears, soaring effortlessly across this endless ocean of air.

I will myself to become as still as the landscape of which I am but a temporary part. My breathing deepens until it emulates the imperceptible respirations of the living earth.

To speak would seem a sacrilegious transgression, as though the sound of a human voice would destroy the spell nature has cast over the ancient land. The very dimensions of this venue sever to remind us of our own temporal and insignificant presence. The brevity of our mortal lives is reinforced when confronted by the element of timelessness that is the signature of this ancient, glacier scarred land. And yet one day my mortal remains will be reclaimed and enfolded once again into this land from which I have sprung. Flesh and blood and bone and sinew are made from the same material that constitutes this land and to this place I must be returned that my breath will become a part of every passing wind and the seasons as well.