They Were There Again Today
I thought that they had flown south, fleeing the harsh and cooling climate of Michigan, and yet there they were in the cool gray of the early evening, their long gray necks extended as they hesitantly looked at my intrusion upon their foraging. I do not heed the promting to leave that is given to me in the form of cool raindrops.
I'm sure in their primitive minds they recognized me, that woman who has followed them out into the fallow field, as they look for small kernels of corn that lay forgotten in the lined and stalk-stubbled ground. The three of them. I want to get closer, to see their three red-capped heads- I am inescapably drawn to the unusual, to the wildness of it. This time I carry my camera with me. I passed them by earlier, and quickly raced home in anticipation of creating some tangible proof that I had really seen them, really noticed them there, in a place so easily passed by people in their cars on the way to or from the important things of life. Some even hesitate withing the fortresses of their vehicles to see if they can find what I am so engrossed in, but quickly pass on by. A T-Shirt would have done the deed "I Walked With Sandhill Cranes" emblazoned across my chest as a small show that I noticed. That all of my protestations for being a person who sees the things that others cannot was not just mere assertion, but fact. That I have lived and seen, and done, and know things that others do not. In lieu of a Walt Disneyesque souvenier, what is captured through the long range lens of my camera and two gray-brown feathers will have to suffice. My telephotographic vision allows me to be that much closer, and yet still I long for more- to gain acess by my proximity to their wildness some of that selfsame purity. The antithesis of this world.
And yet I, by the posession of this camera, by my need for artificial means of claiming the primal, I am anathema to them. They know that I have come to steal their souls, and they only let me get so close before fleeing. We have done this dance before; I tread ever closer, and the trio move away, slowly at first, and then finally take to the air in the ultimate expression of their freedom. This time they leave me silently, save for the sound of their wet wings beating in the rain soaked twilight. Before I have beeen given their umistakable protesting cry, somewhere between a clarinet being played in standing water, and a metal table leg being dragged over ancient linoleum. Is this some small measure of acceptance, or a resignation to the world's intrusion on their peace and solitude? I watch their sillouettes eventually fade and dissapear, and then I give in to the urgings brought on by my rain clouded glasses and damp skin, and make my way to my own car, and home to the creature comforts that sheild me, and at the same time chain me.
I thought that they had flown south, fleeing the harsh and cooling climate of Michigan, and yet there they were in the cool gray of the early evening, their long gray necks extended as they hesitantly looked at my intrusion upon their foraging. I do not heed the promting to leave that is given to me in the form of cool raindrops.
I'm sure in their primitive minds they recognized me, that woman who has followed them out into the fallow field, as they look for small kernels of corn that lay forgotten in the lined and stalk-stubbled ground. The three of them. I want to get closer, to see their three red-capped heads- I am inescapably drawn to the unusual, to the wildness of it. This time I carry my camera with me. I passed them by earlier, and quickly raced home in anticipation of creating some tangible proof that I had really seen them, really noticed them there, in a place so easily passed by people in their cars on the way to or from the important things of life. Some even hesitate withing the fortresses of their vehicles to see if they can find what I am so engrossed in, but quickly pass on by. A T-Shirt would have done the deed "I Walked With Sandhill Cranes" emblazoned across my chest as a small show that I noticed. That all of my protestations for being a person who sees the things that others cannot was not just mere assertion, but fact. That I have lived and seen, and done, and know things that others do not. In lieu of a Walt Disneyesque souvenier, what is captured through the long range lens of my camera and two gray-brown feathers will have to suffice. My telephotographic vision allows me to be that much closer, and yet still I long for more- to gain acess by my proximity to their wildness some of that selfsame purity. The antithesis of this world.
And yet I, by the posession of this camera, by my need for artificial means of claiming the primal, I am anathema to them. They know that I have come to steal their souls, and they only let me get so close before fleeing. We have done this dance before; I tread ever closer, and the trio move away, slowly at first, and then finally take to the air in the ultimate expression of their freedom. This time they leave me silently, save for the sound of their wet wings beating in the rain soaked twilight. Before I have beeen given their umistakable protesting cry, somewhere between a clarinet being played in standing water, and a metal table leg being dragged over ancient linoleum. Is this some small measure of acceptance, or a resignation to the world's intrusion on their peace and solitude? I watch their sillouettes eventually fade and dissapear, and then I give in to the urgings brought on by my rain clouded glasses and damp skin, and make my way to my own car, and home to the creature comforts that sheild me, and at the same time chain me.
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