I stood alone among the trees, or so I thought until I saw the face. One moment, it was way up among the branches, cool and calm, no more than a thoughtful pattern of leafy highlights and dark shadows. An angled twig served it for an eyebrow, a patch of blue for an eye. Then in a sudden breeze, the face was gone.

I looked elsewhere; a face appeared on the craggy bole of an ancient hawthorn, enlightened by the moving sun-dapple on the lichened bark. Sliding in the sunlight, it fell from canopy to earth with first a smile, then frown, and finally an impish grin. A rustle in the leaves showed where it came to rest, a patch of woodland litter suddenly reordered as a wood-mouse scuttled through. Then, for a moment it was lost among the settling leaves, only to be resurrected by a blackbird as it plucked an earwig from its hiding place.

What spirit of the wood was there that day, what sylvan sprite inhabited that glade, and every other wood and forest full of gestalt propositions for the eye. Was it Pan, Diana, the Green Man, a wandering satyr, or lonely muse in search of human company. Maybe all those, or any one. Who was to say the face in the treetops was also that among the fallen leaves?

I wandered, wondering, beneath the trees. Then, inspiration! Each face ephemeral must be the same, however much they differed. It seemed to me, there was a constancy behind the image wherever in the chaos it appeared. What I had seen was the face of nature, or at least, all that the human eye can make of nature’s face.

One question more, possessed my thoughts: Did the blackbird share, with me, the pictured personality created by its leafy excavations? Did it see the face as human or as its own reflected. What of the doomed earwig and the passing wood-mouse, did they see nature wearing fearsome insect armour or a timid whiskered mask? But no, I thought, that can’t be so. Surely the creatures of the wild, so near to nature as they are, do not need to put nature in its place by reducing it to no more than the fleeting outline of a face.

Copyright The Mundesley Hermit ©1998