The Sycamore at the Gilpin House

See that tree?  That tree is older than the house.  There's a dedication plaque suggesting this sycamore was living when our constitution was signed, 224 years ago.  The person at the visitors center said it is 312 years old, which means it was a seedling in the year 1699.  Such defiance!  It has it's own lightning rod, too.  The house is it's own affair.  It was a tavern and a hostile and there was a history book stolen when the British sacked the Brandywine frontline.
As a naturalist (of my own order, naturally), I tend not to go for all that historical stuff.  It's interesting, sure, it fills the space between nature's secrets.  Of whatever happened here so long ago, only the words remain. The battlefields and battalions have been overrun by buttercups and wild strawberries.  The great sycamore has come through unmoved.  Is that not a great lesson, too?
The Brandywine Battlefield Park, which used to be a State Park, is an unassuming place.  I like that you have the option of a guided tour or that you may roam freely.  You don't get that option in many historic places.  Here you can, and I will suggest, that you park your car and walk over the hills.  Staying open to the stories whispered while you sweep at the grasses.  Whatever your destination, you will have traipsed part of the path leading to our nation's independence.   As singular as the sycamore, you may stand aware and perhaps find your shoes stained not by blood, by buttercup pollen.

Sometimes I am a middle aged man presented with the reality of time and sometimes I am a five year old child lost in the bewilderment of a wonderful moment.