Turtle

Now I see it--

it nudges with its bulldog head

the slippery stems of the lilies, making them tremble;

and now it noses along in the wake of the little brown teal

who is leading her soft children

from one side of the pond to the other; she keeps

close to the edge

and they follow closely, the good children--

the tender children,

the sweet children, dangling their pretty feet

into the darkness.

And now will come--I can count on it--the  murky splash,

the certain victory

of that pink and gassy mouth, and the frantic

circling of the hen while the rest of the chicks

flare away over the water and into the reeds, and my heart

will be most mournful

on their account.  But, listen,

what's important?

Nothing's important

except that the great and cruel mystery of the world,

of which this is a part,

not to be denied.  Once,

I happened to see, on a city street, in summer,

a dusty, fouled turtle plodded along--

a snapper--

broken out I suppose from some backyard cage--

and I knew what I had to do--

I looked it right in the eyes, and I caught it--

I put it, like a small mountain range,

into a knapsack, and I took it out

of the city, and I let it

down into the dark pond, into

the cool water,

and the light of the lilies,

to live.

In denying death, we refuse life.   I didn't always know this.  As a child I mourned for the animal children of the world, and so became a bird veterinarian.  I could not bear to lose one beauty to anything, for all loss was deemed cruel to me.  Then came a time when not only could I not end the curse of death, but was the cause of it.

In my bird clinic in Guatemala I was taking care of a Grey Hawk who had been shot, and a Pygmy Kingfisher who had been poisoned.  I fumed at my own kind who had done such deeds!  As they were wild birds I had to separate them from our aviary birds, so I placed them in separate cages in quarantine - our bathroom.  It was such a small space for prey and predator to share.  One day, the minute kingfisher flew out from cage through the bars, and into the talons of the hawk.  In the attempt to save, I had set up the circumstances of death. 

So too Mary with the saving of her turtle. So too us all as we step out unto the day to live.

What is your place in setting up circumstances of death?

From This River, When I Was a Child, I Used to Drink

But when I came back I found

That the body of the river was dying.

“Did it speak?”

Yes, it sang out the old songs, but faintly.

“What will you do?

I will grieve of course, but that’s nothing.

“What, precisely, will you grieve for?”

For the river.  For myself, my lost

Joyfulness. For the children who will not

Know what a river can be – a friend, a

Companion, a hint of heaven.

“Isn’t this somewhat overplayed?”

I said: it can be a friend.  Companion.  A hint of heaven.

Here I am back in Guatemala after a 6 month absence. When last here I posted my blogs in the form of tweets. Somehow this seemed appropriate to use a medium of communication that relates to the diminishing bird song.  The calls of Scarlet Macaws are long gone from nearly all of Guatemala, and the Yellow-naped Amazon calls are fainter each time I come.  I mourn.

There was a time when I was unsure of my mourning. It was if I was the only one who knew how abundant the harmony of multiple species of parrot calls here was in the south coast of Guatemala.  People who would see my tears and read my words wondered if I was overplaying the loss. They hadn’t looked into the regretful eyes of older campesinos who tell stories of macaws, amazons, and parakeets all nesting in one giant tree.  Now it’s hard to find even the trees, let alone the birds.

In this poem Mary repeats to the skeptic about her friendship with the river. Perhaps she too has felt isolated with the rivers going with no one on the shores to grieve with her, as if the river song was nothing of importance.  But it is.  Mary, you, and I have company now as the rivers leave us high and dry.

In the book, Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind, I red yesterday how psychologists, counselors, therapists, and scientists are increasingly aware of the illness and woundedness of humans who witness ecological devastation and extinction.  Writes Mary Watkins in the chapter, Creating Restorative Ecotherapuetic Practices, “I grasped and acknowledged that the plant and animal worlds were a source of primary attachment, a significant contributor to their (her patients) resilience in the face of great difficulties and disappoints in human life, and a wellspring of faith in beauty and goodness.”  Rivers, trees, birds, mountains, oceans, and flowers all befriend our kind.  So I am glad that it is more mainstream to grieve together as a community of mixed species.  That’s step one and it is hardly nothing.  We must hear and sing death songs, as Mary describes in my blog of two days go.  But what next?

What will you do?

 

The Murderer's House - January 6, 2010

....This is our failure, that in all the world

Only the stricken have learned how to grieve.

Safe in our cars, we pause along the highway

AS one by one the leveling seasons fall:

And one by one we drive away, rejoicing

In such a distance as could strike us all.

So I imagine that in preschool we begin the practice of grieving. In coloring books we fill in the colors of our lost companion animals, grandparents, and friends who have left us behind. In art class throughout our growing years we free draw what we long for and make masks that are the demons and murderers within us all. At the end of each creative session that play dirges and hymns in the back ground we then chant, sing, dance, and beat drums and our chests in good company, and in drawing the evil within the circle, we may then rejoice in honest gratitude.