DANCE MOMENTS

"…an ethereal silver gauze that hung

above the water like a ghostly naiad…"

There was fog along the river this morning—an ethereal silver gauze that hung above the water like a ghostly naiad, indistinct, translucent, softly mysterious. The sound of the riffle was muted to a murmur, as if for the time being, the river had chosen to convey its elemental secrets in a whisper.

"…The sound of the riffle was muted to a murmur…"

On the gravel bar across from the cottage, a handful of Canada geese preened in the tenebrous blue-green light. Used to my presence, they never lifted their heads from their ablutions as I picked my way down the stone steps.

"…a handful of Canada geese preened

in the tenebrous blue-green light."

The fog was born from the temperature differential between water and air—a clear night and deep chill which had bottomed out near the freezing point after several eighty-degree days. I'd ignored the weather service's warnings and not covered the plants, but luckily, there didn't appear to be any frost damage.

"…I became aware I was not alone in my river-watching."

As I stood on the platform near the water's edge, I became aware I was not alone in my river-watching. Across the channel, in one of the island's sycamores, a turkey vulture sat on a limb twenty feet above the pool below the riffle, alternately keeping a thoughtful eye on both me and the water. They usually don't sit this low so early in the day; you're more likely to see them perched high in the very tops of the tallest trees, wings spread wide as they warm their bones in the first golden wash of morning sunlight. Of course, the sun was still hiding, working it's way to the top of the little hill to the east and expected to make an appearance any moment.

"Eventually, the sun found its way above the hill."

Today I am another year older; one tock closer to the final chime which eventually tolls for one and all—though not a thought I want to dwell on on so glorious a May morning. At best age is a general measurement, a number that often says little about where we stand as individuals, our lives, development, worth, even its expectancy. We all know folks who are "young" or "old" for their age, mature or immature in their outlook and restraint. Some of us get older but refuse to grow up.

"Warm yellow light glimmered through the greenery…"

Eventually, the sun found its way above the hill. Warm yellow light glimmered through the greenery, and varnished the tops of east-facing sycamores downstream. Their white trunks fairly gleamed. A robin sitting under the picnic table found encouragement in this glorious unfolding drama and began singing. A fish rose in the pool. Beginning to feel encouraged myself, I decided to get a rod and see if that bass and I might engage in a morning waltz.

"A robin sitting under the picnic table…"

Life is filled with moments for dance…and I don't want to miss a single opportunity to enjoy my allotted whirls.

———————

SECOND HELPING

The sky is a blanket of pale gray clouds. After two days of brilliant blue, the overcast seems darker than it is, a pall slipped over the landscape. And yet…this shadowless veil has the counter-intuitive effect of making colors richer, more saturated, as if the gain had been increased by giving the color-intensity knob a hefty clockwise crank.

As is my normal routine, I began the morning well before daylight—sitting at my desk with a mug of steaming coffee, peering into the thick blackness beyond the study window and waiting for the river to slowly appear like a ghostly vein below the sub-dermal layer of darkness. This will be the last week of Daylight Savings Time. Good riddance! Enough with governmental meddling! Allow the time to be what it is, what feels "natural."

Sure, I understand this system of measurement is something devised by man, invented for our comfort and convenience. Night and day divided into twenty-four one-hour increments, themselves each divided into sixty minutes, with another sub-division of minutes into sixty seconds. One turn of the earth all chopped up into neat little pieces. As if such a formal imposition might really matter.

The relationship seems more natural to me if the pattern of light and dark is allowed to mirror the rhythm of the seasons as I first encountered them. The sudden relocation of dusk and dawn when Daylight Savings Time takes over in the spring, and departs in the fall, does nothing for me except muck up my prototype rhythm of season and time so deeply ingrained from childhood. Back then, October daylight arrived an hour earlier; so did dusk. That still feels natural to me. So I say again…good riddance!

Unfortunately, I don't think I can blame the behavior of my adopted ducks on time-change. Whatever form of alarm clock ducks employ for their morning wake-up, it is simply set to early. As in too-dark-to-see early. Not that darkness hampers their feeding capabilities. Maybe ducks have built in thermal imaging…or are hiding little pairs of night-vision goggles under their wings. Whatever. When they decide it's time for breakfast—which happened about 6:21 EDST this morning—they paddle up from their usual night berth a hundred yards downstream, dock themselves just off my riverbank steps and within easy corn-tossing range of the front deck, and quack loud enough to wake the dead…or any sleeping neighbors for blocks around.

This is not, I must reemphasize, a standard mild-mannered park-pond duck quack. We're talking QUACK! QUACK! QUACK! Part Canada goose, part trumpeter swan, with bit of air-horn from those clown cars at the circus. Loud. Obnoxious. Bleating. Demanding. FEED US! FEED US! FEED US!

Naturally, I dash out and sling them their measure of cracked corn forthwith, before anyone starts shooting. A slave to ducks. What an ignominious position for a dignified nature scribbler, and proof once again that no good deed goes unpunished…

Long after my panhandling waterfowl have breakfasted, morning arrives—not via light flooding over the eastern horizon, but by light which simply sneaks in here, there, and everywhere, like mildew in a closet, until there comes a moment when you realize you can see shape and color. I pluck the camera from the desk and step outside, careful to remain hidden from the ducks' view.

The river is beautiful in the soft light—water the color of dark jade, bankside vegetation a study in gold and orange, tan and russet, yellow, green, and some small plant upstream that shows a dark shade of ox-blood Cabernet. A lone turkey vulture wings slowly overhead.

I love days such as this, love their cloistered feel, love the way some hues are muted and others seem to glow as if lit by an inner light. Life is so wondrous, so lovely…so precious. No day should ever be wasted.

"Com'on, ducks," I said, loud enough so's the paddling pair on the nearby pool could hear my voice. I stepped out from behind the tree and headed toward the corn bin. "Com'on and have a second helping!"

HERON ON THE ROCKS

Blue heron on the rocks. Sounds like a drink you’d order in an eco-bar. Some little hole-in-the-wall place in the bowels of a dank city, no sign outside, known only to the cognoscenti, where those too long deprived of woods and waters and fresh air come to drown their troubles.

The pinups on the wall would be posters of mountains and wildflowers and smog-free blue sky. The jukebox might play such tunes as “Burbling Stream,” “Wind Through the Pines,” and ”Bullfrogs On the Bayou.”

A place of rescue and refuge where a man, wearied and numbed by the concrete and glass and crowded sidewalks, feeling like a rat lost in a maze after the day’s grind of traffic and all the buying and selling and deal-making, could stumble in, blink a time or two, then belly up to the bar and order: “Gimmie a blue heron on the rocks…and make it a double!”

There have been many occasions during the various incarnations of what I euphemistically call my career, when I have been that drained and bewildered town-trapped man. Had such a watering hole been available, I would have become a daily patron…

Yes, dear folks, this is the real me. No need to smoke leaves from those funny weeds that grow up the road. Just put me out in the yard with the dog early in the morning, before I’ve yet achieved my usual caffeine buzz, and my squirrelly brain is apt to go skating off on some bizarre, fantastical tangent simply because I glanced up the river and saw a familiar feathered fisherman standing patiently at the head end of the island.

The rising sun was just brushing its warm light across the water. Tendrils of fog still swirled in the shadows. The nearby world was green and soft and filled with a comfortable quiet broken only by the ringing lilt of a Carolina wren in the thicket by the driveway.

As I watched, the heron stepped onto a rock, then stepped back down into the shallow water. And kept he kept repeating this over and over—up, down, up down. I wondered if the bird was undecided about getting his feet wet? Or was he just acting like I often do in the mornings?

I understand such early-morning indecisiveness because I regularly find myself vacillating over the most mundane matters…do I want one handful of raisins in my oatmeal or two? It’s as if my brain, not yet fully committed to reasoning or reaching a decision, gets stuck in dithering mode…should I pour my coffee into the blue mug or the red one?

I’m not even gong to ask if anyone else has a similar affliction. But trust me, there are often times just after I arise when I stand in the kitchen and have to ask myself—what am I trying to think about?

Fortunately, a half hour and a cup or two of coffee and I’m up to speed, everything functioning as well as can be expected. And apparently, something finally kicked in with the heron.

After standing immobile for perhaps a quarter hour, looking upstream and down, but never into the water, the gangly slate-colored bird shook himself and seemed ready to get down to business. He hunched and began stepping slowly upstream—careful, his posture alert and coiled, ready to strike, as he was peered intently into the murky shallows.

Sometimes, the best fishing of the day comes with the burgeoning light. As a fellow fishermen, I understand such matters from long experience on many streams. Just as I understand that mornings on the water are best enjoyed in solitude, without an audience.

I turned, whistled softly to the dog, and we headed back inside.