Not quite angels on high, but close

Late this morning we needed to attend to some errands. We ended up driving 30 or 40 miles or so, round trip, through cold air, under darkening, cloudy skies, past frozen marshes locked in by ice cover not yet safe for skating or walking. Farmers fields are bare and barren. Fallow fields are tan and tawny and sere. Parking lots and grocery stores are full of people hurrying in preparation for tomorrow's big meal.

The scene wasn't entirely gloom and doom, but neither was it full of cheer. Then, we noticed a in the empty sky a lower cloud waving against a ghost-like backdrop. A line, no, a couple of puffs, no, line, back and forth the shape shifted and writhed until it finally came into focus and our heart leaped with joy. GEESE! A large flock of Canadas, probably close to 50 or more, headed Northeast at mid-day. To feed? Back to open water somewhere to rest after a morning feeding session? They were headed in the wrong direction to be migrating.

Canada geese headed away

Photo by J. Harrington

We're not sure what it is about waterbirds, especially larger ones such as geese and swans, that pleases us so, just to see them. We've watched the pattern long enough to simply enjoy it: large flocks in the air, heart soars. Years ago, when we were among the honorable order of active waterfowl hunters, we thoroughly relished the number of things we got to spend time messing about with:

• boats
• canoes
• waders
• shotguns
• dogs: Labradors in particular
• shotshell loads and patterns
• decoys
• trailers
• canoes
• pick-up trucks
• camouflage for: hunter, boat, shotguns, etc.
• buckets and satchels and like to haul most of the above
• thermos for coffee
• gloves and warm layers
• water and snow proof outer shells
• paints for decoys and camouflage
• calls for ducks and geese
• lanyards for calls

swans resting on ice

Photo by J. Harrington

We've no doubt forgotten some odds and ends and maybe even some major piece or two of equipment such as blinds and cases (floating) for shotguns. We're going on record, right now, to say how very grateful we are for all the hours and days "wasted" with friends (two and four-legged) in swamps, marshes, tidal creeks, clam flats, lake shores, cattails, rushes, etc in pursuit of waterfowl that were worth every outrageous cent they cost in dollars per pound. Were it not for those hours and  days, we might still be looking forward to a butterball tomorrow, instead of an organic, free range, flavorful bird. Count me among those who, like Aldo Leopold, cannot live without wild things. I'm thankful we still have some to enjoy. Shortly after we finished our business and had returned home to walk the dogs, the darkened skies shared some snow showers. They reminded us of the old waterfowler's saying:

Fust it rained
And then it blew
And then it friz
And then it snew!

We settled for three out of the four today. Good enough! We still had a lab to walk in the snewshower!

                     Call Him Zero

By Sydney Lea

It struck them both as strange: although each pond and lake

clear to the coast was locked in ice, no open water,

the imperious wind kept pushing waterfowl inland. That night

a winter moon stood high and pierced the thin clouds’ vapors

so the boy could contemplate their emptiness inside.

Relentless, the flocks flew westward. The border collie whimpered,

putting his forepaws now on one sill, now another,

as if some odd creature circled the house.

                                                                                          This lifetime later,

a man, he looks back on that stay at her farm, its details clear,

their meanings still vague. His grandmother called it wrong as well,

that the weather should be so frigid even in such a gale.

As a rule this kind of cold needed calm. He sees the fire,

the dazzle of sparks when she loaded a log. What seemed most amiss

was how the old woman’s house no longer felt safe that visit.

He wanted and did not want to know what the dog might know.

He tried to picture the menace outdoors. He longed to shape it

so that he might name it. And after these many miles to now,

away from the ruby glow of the metal parlor stove,

from that blue-eyed collie, from the woman he so admires and loves

recalling that night; after so much time,

                                                                                          he still believes

that to name a thing is to tame it, or at least to feel less bewildered.

Not Death, for instance, but The deaths of Al and Virginia, his parents.

Not the abstract legalism, Divorce, but The disappearance

of my sweet wife Sarah, run off with that California lawyer.

Not simply Alone, but I have no children. Was that the wail

of geese coming down the stovepipe? If so, it would be a marvel,

but he knew it wasn’t. The caterwaul from the barn was alarming,

and more than it might have been had Grandma herself not startled—

after which she put on her late large husband’s threaded farming

coveralls outside her housedress, which rode up and made

a lumpy sash. She stepped out under cloud and bird.

He would not follow. Rather, he stood

                                                                                          indoors to wait

until she came stomping her boots through puddled barnyard holes

like a child herself, kicking ice shards to scuttle along

like beads from a broken bracelet. No matter. The world had gone wrong,

violent and void at once. She said, The mare has foaled.

On tiptoe, she read the mercury out the kitchen window,

then told her shivering grandson, We’ll call the new colt Zero. 

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