Xena, Ozzy and I headed to the park extra early on Sunday. It was still dark, but as soon as we drove into the park I knew something was up.
It was infested with boy scouts from Oak Ridge.
But they were all still sleeping soundly. Xena and Ozzy ran up to sniff a bundle of blankets and a sleeping bag, but it didn’t even stir.
We set off on a path that was thick with honeysuckle and the occasional stumbumbling bees lumbering to life in the first light of day, trying to shake off a treacly hangover. It made me think of Yeats’ incredible lines in The Lake Isle of Innisfree:
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
I remember once trying to explain this walk that is my church. The two youngsters who were dogging my steps as surely as Xena and Ozzy that day looked perplexed. Church to them involved walls and a roof, preachers and a congregation. But after a moment, they smiled and understood.
Thoreau would be proud.