Excerpt from "The Ancient Peach Pit Burial Ground"

By Olivia Huff

These days I feel the same breeze that rustles the leaves of the Aspen tree. It is called the Quaking Aspen for the noisy trembling and shivering of its million little leaves. In the early autumn, as you climb in altitude, the Aspen turns magnificent. A great organism connected by a single root system. A forest of Aspens turns into a golden sea of glittering yellow leaves. They fall and litter the floor, creating a bright and beautiful carpet. To walk amongst their majesty is to stand in the presence of a reincarnated sun. I live here in my mind, on the top of a hill peaking out amongst a golden vista. As I look into the west, the last rays of light set upon the dark and distant purple mountains. The white bark stands like a field of bones, a thousand strong, beckoning me back to earth and so I begin the long trek back down the mountain in the final waning light of day.

Much later, I would crave to return to this distant place. I was afraid it was a figment of my imagination. Or that it wasn’t mine and it was somebody else’s. Afraid I would have to share these treasures I had fought long and hard for. I was older and stuck like a fossil in sediment. It took me too long to leave the hot, choked air of the city and come back to my Aspen forest. By October it is too late and every tree is bare and now the bones are disappointed strangers. I am not welcome and I must look for another secret nature reserve to make my home.

Further down the mountain, the season is less progressed and you can find hidden passes where the Aspens still hold on begrudgingly to their yellow leaves. A trail will take you winding alongside a river. It is a brilliant turquoise-blue, unlike any running water I’ve ever seen. I slip from wet stone to wet stone till I stand in the middle of the rapids. Milky water swirls around me and I breathe deeply in the clean mountain air. My soul intoxicated by what I have discovered. Alone in a forest with only the baked white, travertine river stones and the bold blue jay for company.

Original Photography by Olivia Huff, "Travertine River".

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