On the first day, we go hiking. The air is close and humid, ripe with the smell of earth and trees, overgrown plants. Our feet crunch in the soft, mulchy ground and the sound scares away what little wildlife there is. Just birds.

I get blisters.

A rock as big as a house stands to the right, seemingly from nowhere. The impact must have been earth-shaking. I look up to make sure his brother isn't waiting in the wings. We hike up and up and now our breaths mingle with our crunching feet, adding to the humidity. We come to a clearing, a granite platform shooting out of the trees, sloping down to a sharp point that makes my fingers tingle with the thought of jumping. I know I won't, but what if I do?

A park ranger stands in the middle, a short square man with a Tom Selleck mustache and a great big belly hanging over his pants that makes me think he isn't much of a hands-on kinda ranger. He is pointing to the trees and we follow his finger and see the Sequoias. We listen politely and others stumble into the clearing, taking in the view, catching their breaths, keeping their footing.

All movement stops when the park ranger bursts into poem, a poem about these giant trees. We feel embarrassed, but he has a beautiful voice, deep and smooth and strong enough to leap out into the air and over the trees, even the giant Sequoias. We see them, as if for the first time, unable to fathom how enormous they really are, even though we are looking right at them. They are real, but how can they be real?

The man talks and a breeze whispers, but I know it's not the wind that give me chills. The man sweeps his arm to encompass our view--the trees, the sky, the rocks--blue, green, gray, the colors so sharp I have to squint. His last words hang in the air and in my mind, even now:

God stands before you in these trees.

This submission has been viewed 4499 times.