The hillside's forest edge opens to the west so as the sun sets from across a wide valley, there is something unusual about the angle of the sun. At sunset, the hillside trees are illuminated from beneath the canopy.
The jewel weed, this year luxuriant,
neck deep in yellow flower
over most of the hillside.
The stems; succulent and hollow.
When wading into the summer sea of Jewelweed,
if the time is right
you may hear the sound of falling rain-
but the sound is bursting seed pods not raindrops.
Rain drops play into the name, "jewelweed."
Water beads on the leaves, so when the sun emerges after the rain
the water droplets look like jewels.
With the heavy frost of October, while other plants survive
this succulent suddenly disappears,
and in a sense, it has returned to vapour.
The sudden spike in sunlight does not go unnoticed by the rest of the biosphere-here on the forest floor. As the blowing leaves settle into the hollows, the ferns and moss emerge from the summer eclipse.
A few years back, during one spectacular sunset, (the kind where the sky opens at the horizon beneath a solid violet-black bank of clouds), i was looking up the hillside. Looking at some big chunks of moss-covered-limstone when i saw something weird. something i couldn't understand so I went out and investigated....
It was early spring, the other season that the moss can soak up some sun. i.e. When skiing around the bush in the early spring- in a t shirt, you can lean back on those big moss draped rocks and feel the sloar gain... Anyway, it had snowed a little. What appeared above the big rocks was a phlorescent lime-green cloud, hovering above the new dusting of snow.
The moss had sent up spore heads... transluscent green, shaped like the head of a flamingo, a bit smaller than an alfalfa sprout.
Only the spore heads were protruding through the layer of snow
and they were being illuminated with a golden light from below.
