So Human an Animal

Late yesterday, a little before sunset, we watched a doe and her yearling daughter emerge from the oak woods and head toward the pear tree behind the house. Another doe, already under the pear tree, by herself, wasn't noticed until she dashed out from under the tree's branches and chased away the newcomer mother doe. The yearling stood still as mom was pursued over the hill. When it became clear that mom wasn't returning anytime soon, the yearling followed over the crest of the hill looking for mom and her aggressor. About ten minutes later, a single doe, presumably the chaser, was again feeding under the pear tree.

whitetail doe under pear tree

Photo by J. Harrington

All Summer we've watched similar aggressive behavior from at least one of the couple or more pairs of hummingbirds feeding at the nectar feeders we hang. Even if it's not feeding, just let another hummer arrive at a feeder and someone arrives, streaking past as if on a strafing run. As Summer has gone on, the other hummers have become less readily intimidated and a game like whack-a-mole, but with hummingbirds, gets played around the feeders.

panorama at International Wolf Center

Photo by J. Harrington

We've watched films of wolves and ravens, and sometimes eagles, feeding on deer carcasses. The wolves would have it that no one eats until they're finished, and, maybe not even then. Although we're not very inclined to lean toward Social Darwinism, perhaps it would behove us humans to more readily remember that, on an evolutionary scale, we're not all that far removed from the rest of the animals. Our lizard brain stick has more than enough capacity to get us into more trouble than we can easily handle. Just ask Rene Dubos.

The Future is an Animal

Tina Chang, 1969

In every kind of dream I am a black wolf 
careening through a web. I am the spider 
who eats the wolf and inhabits the wolf’s body.
In another dream I marry the wolf and then 
am very lonely. I seek my name and they name me 
Lucky Dragon. I would love to tell you that all 
of this has a certain ending but the most frightening
stories are the ones with no ending at all. 
The path goes on and on. The road keeps forking, 
splitting like an endless atom, splitting 
like a lip, and the globe is on fire. As many
times as the book is read, the pages continue
to grow, multiply. They said, In the beginning, 
and that was the moral of the original and most 
important story. The story of man. One story. 
I laid my head down and my head was heavy. 
Hair sprouted through the skin, hair black 
and bending toward night grass. I was becoming 
the wolf again, my own teeth breaking 
into my mouth for the first time, a kind of beauty 
to be swallowed in interior bite and fever. 
My mind a miraculous ember until I am the beast. 
I run from the story that is faster than me, 
the words shatter and pant to outchase me. 
The story catches my heels when I turn 
to love its hungry face, when I am willing
to be eaten to understand my fate.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.