Sometimes there is a path that welcomes an easy stride adorned with a landscape of mountains, hills, and lake laid out like five star restaurant table setting.  Every walk I pass by this grove set off to the side of the trail. Soon their canopies will be knitted together and the many will appear as one.  I always bow and greet their beauty as I listen to their music of birds and wind. Today, all was still.  No birds or wind to sing to the grove. I stood and listened and then I laughed. I strolled down the trail’s bank, reached into my pocket and turned on the little iPod with chants celebrating life and the earth. And like a serpentine minstrel I danced between the trees and returned the songs they have gifted me. Neither the voice of a bird nor the grace of the wind could I gift. They heard only my heart. And when I tripped and fell to the ground, a feather bed could not have been softer….nor would it have laughed as did we.