Two weeks ago D and I had the wonderful good fortune of getting together live with our son, beloved daughter-in-law, and our two granddaughters. We hadn’t been with them since January and missed them terribly.
We’d rented a modest house in Massachusetts alongside Manchaug Pond, with 60-feet-tall pine, elm, and oak. Wind and light. Sunfish, worms, aquatic plants slapping our ankles. The lap-lap of the lake. Five exquisitely calming days spent mostly out of doors.
No news about Covid-19, no relentless reports in newspapers and evening news shows about the deeply troubling state of the nation. Family, cooking, sinking back onto Adirondack chairs, gazing at the lake, just gazing at the lake, swimming, kayaking, and hanging on a hammock. I wish we could rewind the clock.
On our return, a day or two later, on one of the hottest days of this July, I went out for a desperately needed walk. I made a left on Garden Road with pretty houses, and stopped dead on my tracks.
On a neighbor’s lawn, crouched on the grass, was a giant hawk (20-22” high?) The hawk was turned away from me; its grey and black mottled wings were folded. It was making low pitched, screeching noises, which were then matched right above my head. Another hawk was on the telephone pole. It happened too quickly to be terrifying. The hawk on the lawn lifted into the air, wings still low, grazing the lawn. A chipmunk waved wildly from its talons.
Only two days ago, on an evening walk, D and I saw a baby raccoon (slightly terrifying) curled up against the drain at the end of our street. (We haven’t seen a raccoon in the suburbs for thirty years.) My friend Jackie tells me that her daughter who lives in a more rural community is seeing wild animals closer to home; she recently found baby foxes on the steps to her house. It seems that while we humans hunker down to deal with a viral threat, wild creatures are finding more room to roam. There’s something appropriately fitting about this.
The hawks, the baby raccoon, the birds trilling, the squirrels and chipmunks that burrow under our lawn remind me of the constancy of the life force that is nature. It puts homo sapiens in our place--even though we are working so hard as a species to destroy her.
I hope and pray that with all the mayhem in our world and changes to follow, homo sapiens will reconsider and reassess its relationship with gorgeous Earth, the natural world that is essential to our well being.
Poets say it best.
Joy Harjo is the United States Poet Laureate for 2019, a member of the Mvskoke Nation (Creek) and lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She’s also a musician and playwright. Here’s a little chunk from her beautiful “Eagle Poem.”
Eagle Poem
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things,
Watch the poet perform the full poem here on you tube. This reading takes my breath away. It speaks my heart at this very moment.
SPANISH WORDS OF THE DAY:
El LAGO – Lake
El ÁGUILA - Eagle
El HALCÓN – Hawk
La TIERRA - Earth
El MUNDO NATURAL – The natural world