The bright patch of sunlight on the hardwood, striking the shadowed limb, caught my breath. I stopped for a photo. A moment or so later the dogs and I heard a long, loud, slow cracking and then a thump as a very large limb fell from a tree onto the path just ahead.

Truly, it might have fallen right on top of us passing underneath.

For this beauty today, for the beam of light on the bark, for my desire to stop and appreciate it – for this whim, this intuition, this stroke of luck? I am gratefully unharmed.