Despite the cool, it’s pretty obvious that Spring is getting ready to bust out all over, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I know I’ve said this before, but there is just something so amazing about the season, the reawakening of living things after sleep, that I never fail to stand in amazement. This is especially true when I’m in the forest. To that end, the Boy and I took a walk down Turkey Foot on Saturday. The air was warm and, though not many things were not waking up yet, you could feel the stirring of a warmer season just below the ground. Seeds are sprouting beneath the soil, and sap is beginning to rise in the slow, steady way of trees. The creek was singing over stones, and we made our way to what we call the “cathedral.” It’s a spot on down past the Harrison Hole. The water is often shallow, and there are large rocks to sit on. My favorite stone is one that juts out into the water. I can sit there and feel the flow of the water over my fingers as I reach down to touch the song. From there, you can look both directions up and down the creek. The soaring trees, still laced with winter branches, and the high cliff faces to one side frame everything. One cannot help feeling that one is in a cathedral there. The sense of the sacred is so strong that it fills us with wonder.
Just a couple of days before that journey, last Thursday in fact, I awoke to find the Boy had written for me the most beautiful poem. It speaks to that sense of the sacred. I know many people tend to feel more connected to the sacred when they sit in church buildings and pray but the Boy and I tend to feel more in touch with creation when we are surrounded by nature in all her glory, no matter the season. It is the water, the stone, the sun, and the clean air that we are made of. The water runs through our blood. The stone is in our bones. The sun feeds that which feeds us, and the air fills our lungs and lets us live. It is to these things we turn when we feel wretched or empty, and it is these things which renew in us a sense of connection to something larger than ourselves of which we are a part.
The following poem is what the Boy wrote of me, and for himself. Though the wonder of that sense of the sacred cannot be entirely expressed in words, he has managed to weave a very accurate echo of what we feel when we are “called by the forest.” It was that call on Thursday morning that moved him to set pen to page and write this, and it was that call that sent us to the cathedral Saturday. He says that I am the “true writer” in the family, but what you will read below is pretty strong evidence that that is not the case. I’m very proud of him and of this poem, as well as other things he has written. Mostly, I’m very proud of who he is and who he continues to become.
Let Bark be Scripture
At dawn, the forest lifts its vaulted spine,
A cathedral wrought of hickory, oak, and pine.
No mason’s hand has set these pillars straight,
Yet arch on arch in living patience wait.
No bell is rung, yet thrush and hidden wren
Call faithful hearts to kneel again, again.
Their hymns rise thin as incense, sweet and clear,
Threading the hush that teaches us to hear.
The altar stands in every rooted thing.
In ant, and fern, and owl on silent wing.
A fallen log becomes a sacred seat
Where time and soul in wordless wonder meet.
No creed is carved in stone or hammered rod,
Yet every breath is benediction’s nod.
The soil receives confession, leaf, and rain,
And gives them back in rising bloom again.
So enter soft, with reverent, open sight.
Let bark be scripture, canopy be light.
Here, sermons drift with wind and patient trees,
Whose ancient tongues are fluent in the breeze.
Jerry Sparks
February, 2026
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