Tomorrow
Tomorrow, early, my love, you’ll fly away. Today, all tense and stressed, your foot in the stirrup, as Cervantes would say, the anxiety of the journey on your back, you walk around the Beaver Pond where red and yellow leaves abound. I know you are hoping to see, once more before you leave, the Great Blue Heron that was here last week. Some ducks remain. I can see them standing on the water, flapping their wings, inflaming the wind, keeping themselves warm, not looking as if they really want to fly.
Alas, there are no beavers now. An abandoned lodge, the grass on its roof turning brown and dry, lofts white sticks into the sky, but the waterways are clogging and the beaver have gone. Drowned tree trunks, beaver-gnawed and languishing, grow tiny clumps of grass and weed. Sometimes, they join together and form a miniature island that will grow at last into a grassland. The deserted lodge reminds me of our home, soon to be abandoned by the life and soul that animates it and keeps it alive. It will be sad and lonely living there without you. I know I will have the cat for company, but that’s not the same. I think I’m in charge of her, but I wonder sometimes if you’re leaving her in charge of me.
A thin grey woven webbing garlands one moribund tree. I don’t like tent worms or their equivalents. Every year we face a different invasion of this worm or that and the trees stand shocked by crawling creatures that infest their branches and build their silk cities up into the sky. I hate it when those dangling inhabitants, escaping from their cocoons, swing from low branches and twine silk threads around my face. Give me any day a fresh green frond caught by the morning sun in early spring, or else bright autumn leaves so soon to fall.
I love American Goldfinches when they sing that last departing song. I love most of all the occasional visitors that wing up north on the wings of a summer storm. Do you recall the Indigo Bunting that perched in the Mountain Ash just outside our kitchen window? He had the look of a lost bird and his call was more a cry of help than a birdsong. You took such lovely photos of him as he sat there, looking this way, that way, anyway for the way he needed to go home … and those two cardinals, orange the one, bright red the other, standing beneath the feeder, so bright against the early snow.
The hunting hawks give everyone a fright. They perch on top of a power line pole then step off into space to alight, claws first, on some poor songbird trilling away, quite free from fear, his unfinished symphony of song. Claws first? I gaze again at the photo you took of the Sharp-shinned Hawk that settled on our porch that day it rained. Claws? The massive yellow talons are high grade weapons fit for any war. I pity the poor bird clasped in those claws and brought to earth or lifted high into the sky, a feast for the marauder.
It’s getting late, my love. You walk towards me out of the woods like some lost spirit returning to this earthly world from some spiritual sanctuary. The season is ending. Thanksgiving is close. It will soon be time for you to pack your bags and go. Three silent wishes for you my love: enjoy yourself; don’t forget me … and don’t stay away too long.
Comment:
This piece goes back to the Fall of 2016. Clare and I visited the Beaver Pond at Mactaquac the day before she left for Ottawa. I sat at a picnic table and watched her as she walked through the woods and around the pond. ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow’: she didn’t want to leave me and I didn’t want her to go, yet we both knew how important it was for her to visit our grandchild for Thanksgiving. Time apart is good: it makes us realize how much we miss each other. For me, above all, it is a reminder of everything that gets done around the home without my ever noticing the care and love that is poured into each moment of every day. Having to provide that care and love for myself is an object lesson that makes me so thankful for the seemingly simple blessings Clare has brought to me throughout our married life …
Indigo Bunting, for Meg:
For you, Meg: photos, by Clare, of our second Indigo Bunting.
He’s rather handsome. We usually get them in from the States following a strong south wind or a summer storm.
Great Blue Heron, for Tanya:
He was right over the garden: beautiful. We don’t often see them up here as we are on the far side of the hill from the river. Must have been raiding a neighbor’s goldfish pond.
rogermoorepoet 
Very elegiac. A couple of nice birds there Roger, I like birds, but so I should, after all I am the King of Cats.
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We have a new cat family in the neighborhood, 3 cats, and they hunt as a team. The family next door lost their rabbits. The man over the road lost his chipmunk. They have raided our bird feeders. Four legged killing machines: I look into the eyes of our own cat and think “What if she weighed 200 lb?”
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They are superb predators. Look at the snow leopard though, there is only one every 4 square miles as that’s all the eco system can support, they are so deadly. The only creatures who dare venture into our garden are crows, our swiper has killed everything else
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We have a family of four crows who patrol our garden. Also blue jays and red and grey squirrels.
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I like birds, you are lucky.
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Oh Indigo Bunting! We had one visit our bird feeder only once, but fortunately that gorgeous purple caught our eye and we saw him, but never again. This is a lovely descriptive piece.
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Thank you, Meg. The Indigo Bunting is an occasional visitor here in New Brunswick. He is spectacular when he drifts in. Equally spectacular, orange and red against the snow, are the pair of cardinals that have decided to winter over in our backyard.
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I have added a couple of photos to the Comments section. For you, Meg!
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Cardinals are plentiful in my back yard. Now if we’d just get some snow to show them off.
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I’ll e-mail you a foot or two of snow. AND we’ve got more due tomorrow.
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I’ll take it!!!
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That takes me straight back to my last home on ten acres…all the birds…including the heron. The difficulties of parting….
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There’s something about a regular set of birds. We begin th recognize the animals: the grey squirrel with the limp, the red squirrel who flattens himself out on the wood of the porch, the chipmunks who muggle and snuggle … I am sure Clare has names for them all. The chickadees just sit out there and wait for her to fill the feeder.
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My bird day today, it seems. And for you, Tanya, a picture of last Fall’s heron, flaying overhead. I’ll add it to the Comments. Must find it first, though.
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I look forward to that. We had Sandhill Cranes nesting in our wetland. I had a young crane cross a few feet in front of my path one day. Mom and dad followed closely behind. That is a large bird to get up close and person with. I stood still…Lol
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The heron’s up on the page now. I have photos of him perched in a neighbor’s tree: does he ever look clumsy!
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Thank you, Roger! That brings back memories.
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Love the sweet sentiments! Dwight
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Thank you. I penned them as I watched Clare walking round the Beaver Pond. I too was playing Cervantes: “Puesto ya el pie en el estribo, / con las ansias del viaje a cuestas, / estos renglones te escribo.” (With my foot already in the stirrup, / and anxiety over the journey weighing me down / I write you these lines.” From memory: but I think the original is “ansias de la muerte” / rather than “ansias del viaje.” Oh dear: memory fails me and creativity steps in as I age.
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Parting is such great sorrow at times!
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One of my friends going through ‘one of those not so sorrowful times’ right now. Tough sledding, tho.
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