Report Back From My Yom Kippur Walk

The sign marks this as the Great Blue Heron Trail.
There are no herons here, great, lesser, or least.
They have flown south for the winter more silently than the geese-
unless they stand still as stalks, invisible among the reeds along the shoreline.
Here there is humus, soft under my feet, dried pine needles and fallen leaves,
red, gold, and yellow distillations of sunlight from the green sukkah above.
I climb a moraine the glaciers left, turn round, and glimpse a river of reflected light,
dazzling waves blown up by a sudden breeze beyond these woods.
I turn back, but find myself lost, until I see a burst of flowers on a south-facing slope.
I hear a flutter in the underbrush, a bird, a flock of birds,
hidden in the tangle of leaves and shadows, but for a flash of wing.
I pause, and all is still. I move, and again they fly, to a quiet call from far away.
Tziporah. Shechina. Your presence here - as if I needed a sign.