They Let Us Live Here
From its perch in the rafters of the (old) old goat barn, a young screech owl calmly blinked its round eyes at me, pupils large and black and infinite in their depth. I stood transfixed, charmed by its confident smallness and wondered if this is how they’ll find me—vertical and awe-anchored to the dry and straw-littered barn floor—when I don’t show up for work tomorrow.
It was my first close encounter with an owl since we arrived here two and a half decades ago, and even as I type this, with a new sun hoisting up the day, I want to head down the slope from the house, slide open the heavy track door and see if she’s still there (be right back)…
Ok, she’s still there, sleeping on a supporting beam just below a center truss, looking feathery soft and content. In future stressful days, I will hold that image in my mind and do my best to channel her into my frazzled nerves.
I’ve taken to counting the rabbits I meet on the field paths during my morning constitutionals, along with any other non-avian creations that make themselves known in the roughly 45-minute amble through the acreage (there are simply too many birds to count and they keep moving around when I can spot them. I do my best to at least know them by species if not song and color). This morning, in the most photo-perfect place where two paths converge and the view is framed by the intertwined and leafy fingers of young black walnut saplings overhead, a russet-colored doe browsed the soft, thin grass, her slender neck curved and relaxed as she nibbled. I slowed my steps in the hopes of not disturbing her peace but her left eye, ever-watchful for danger, locked onto my presence. She snapped her magnificent head upward, snorted and leapt into the thicket. The scent of her earthy fur lingered in the air as I stood where her hooves had just been, thanking aloud anyone within earshot for such an unexpected and beautiful gift (for the record, today’s was a 4-rabbit, 1-startled deer walk).
For reasons beyond my ken, summer seems to be in fast-forward mode, speeding past with some urgent destination on the horizon that we can’t see. The fireflies showed up in mid-May and are now too thin in their ranks for the end of July, and I’m already hearing the crickets who usually don’t make their appearance until late August. Some of the black walnuts shading the chicken run are already dropping yellow leaves and the buckeyes that line the driveway are heavy with the seed pods that will soon break open and drop their mahogany treasures into the poison ivy below. We don’t see orioles at the jelly cup feeders anymore and the mockingbirds that once chattered in the pre-dawn darkness are silent or gone, leaving a mournful gap in the morning symphony. And yet, our tomatoes are taking their sweet ol’ time to ripen. Go figure.
Whatever’s going on behind the curtain of nature’s grand stage, she seems to want us here, making room in her lap for us and all our troubles. She continues to soothe and teach and entertain with a joyful abandon that belies the turbulent undercurrent of the human enterprise roiling our guts daily with its frightening headlines. Hers is a rhythmic motion that pulls us back from the ledges of our worry, gives us good medicine and then pushes us back out into the fray, strengthened and sturdy for the work in front of our open hands. Somehow it all works and we surrender to the mystery of it.
While the tiny owl sleeps in the barn, we’ll mow the grass (all ten acres of walking paths, slopes, meadows and field), trim back the mulberry branches reaching for the power lines that feed our lights and hot water tank, pluck blackberries to freeze for some future winter dessert and shovel mulch into the spaces between the raised beds in the garden. This morning’s startled deer will find other grass to eat and avoid that picturesque spot on the walking path for a while, and the four rabbits that stood stock-still as I ambled past them will return to the clover patches another day. We all keep coming back on our own terms, in our own time, an easy unspoken respect between us as our lives mingle gently in the unfolding days. This is trust and acceptance at their wild and harmonious best.
For anyone listening, thank you.
