Like Stumbling upon a Royal Wedding

Start early, while the sun is still uprighting on wobbly legs.  Cross the broad valleys with postage-stamp houses affixed to the curing grassland washing against the highways.  Up, then, into the high mountains.  A tail of dust raised behind you.  Into the tall pines.  Up and up and up the inclines.  Overtop clear water creeks.

Until you reach the half-lighted knoll.  The all green place.

Climb now on foot.  The sun still pulling itself higher, limb by limb, in the trees just above.  Tall orchard grass and timothy and red paintbrush.  Moths stirring as you swim up through new growth.

And then you find yourself there.

Like stumbling upon a royal wedding.  Perfectly set.  All the proper dress.  All the important characters in attendance.  Thimbleberry nodding broad leaves.  Bright stands of fireweed.  Late trillium.  Twinberry.  Beargrass hand in hand with pinedrops.  A single swallowtail butterfly sewing its colors through the morning air.   

There, amid all of that, the royal family come to wed amid fallen timber, amid all that is sweet, amid all that is rugged and steep.

There, huckleberries.

--Mitchell Hegman