We went out for ice cream.

 

But it's never that simple. We go the long way -- one of the long ways -- slowly meandering the byways and back roads. 

In low wetlands are buttercups and redwing blackbirds. New-mown hayfields have a cultivated harvest beauty, unmown meadows are lakes interrupted by islands of daisies, and in the deepest woods, amid tree shade, ferns, and moss, the very air feels green, as if everything is underwater -- and yet even here in this deep sea mystery, birdsong penetrates, sounding as if all the world (this limited, secret, so-green place) were an enclosed glass conservatory. Then out in the open again, a favorite tree stands calm. And we do, eventually, yes, have ice cream, too.