Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.--Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
~ William Wordsworth, "Lines (composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey...)"
As I rolled slowly around the
last switchback turn, a young deer suddenly leapt out onto the highway from the
brush at the side of the road. I hit my
brakes hard—not out of concern that I would hit him, but because I’ve been
taught by Bob Walker, my favorite old timer on the mountain, that “there’s
never just one.” I slowed to a crawl,
scanning each side of the road for the mother as the little one bounded ahead
of me on legs seemingly made of rubber.
Eventually he had the good sense to veer off into the forest again, and
I resumed my short journey to the post office.
That was yesterday. This morning at 5:00a.m.
I shared a banana with a polite but hungry raccoon who had grown frantic
scavenging because she had three small kits to feed. A few hours later, on another trip to the
post office and in the exact same spot where I saw the deer, I watched a mama
mountain quail scurry across the road.
And I stopped again and watched as her chicks turned tail at the sound
of the truck and scuttled into the bushes.
I knew they would wait until it was absolutely quiet again before
attempting to cross over, and their mother, by clucking, would be the one to
signal the all-clear.
And this afternoon I watched in
dismay as Luna Cat slunk into the cabin and down to the basement, a dark-eyed
junco hanging from her jaws. I followed
her down, scolded her, and she dropped the bird at my feet. Immediately it flew up, beating its wings
frantically against the basement window. As I approached slowly, the bird stopped fluttering and became
still, turning its head to watch me with one tiny onyx dot of an eye. I cupped my hands around its body, leaving
its head exposed, and slowly walked up the stairs, out the door and into the
forest (leaving poor Lu still downstairs, prowling and puzzled, searching for
her bird). I stood for a long minute,
the bird now nestled on one open palm, talking softly and stroking him with a
finger to pull away the pin feathers he’d lost in his brush with death. When he was ready, wits about him now, he
simply flew away.
I had this experience with a
hummingbird once. I had removed all the
screens to rinse the dust off after washing windows on a brilliant summer day,
and the hummingbird just flew right in.
The scenario played out in the same way; the bird, with wings whirring,
pushed its body forward against the clear glass, confused, becoming still as I
moved toward it. I cupped it in my bare
hands, walked outside and for an instant marveled at the miracle of holding
this creature—until it dashed off without so much as a buzz by of thanks.
Two weeks ago, as I was showing
the cabin to some prospective buyers, a bluejay hopped into the cabin through one of the French doors left open. I reached down to shoo him out, but the
motion startled him and he flew up to a kitchen window. Wrapping my hands gently around his folded
wings, I carried him back to the yard and set him down. After a moment, he flew to the safety of a
low tree branch. The potential buyers
were amazed.
“Yes,” I laughed, “I’m the bird
whisperer.”
I’ve held a baby ‘possum in my
hands as well, though I had the presence of mind to pull on my thick leather
work gloves before I scooped it up. The
mother ‘possum, heavily laden with five other joeys on her back, hadn’t managed
to make it back to my neighbor’s shed under cover of darkness. The sun had risen and people were
about—including some excited children—when Junior toppled off, and she was
frantic, unwilling to subject the clinging babies to the danger of the humans
and equally unwilling to leave the wayward child behind (a situation that,
sadly, I’ve had some experience with myself).
I picked up her pink-nosed, beady-eyed child and followed her as she
trundled toward their home, setting him down just outside the shed and then
backing away to watch her turn and gather him in.
It’s been hot in recent days,
even up here on the mountain, and after over-doing it yesterday, I chose a
quiet day today, mostly reading and writing.
During a peaceful interlude of dividing my attention between the huge
thunderheads rolling by and the acorn woodpeckers pecking at the hanging
feeder, I wondered again what I will do to find these miracles when I no longer
live on the mountain. I have been
witness to amazing things here—bears on my back porch, a baby bobcat chasing a
lizard nearly at my feet, a small fox lunging through three-foot snowdrifts on
a full moon night to sniff hungrily at my French doors, bighorn sheep standing
proudly at dawn to face the rising sun, the gorgeous buck who simply walked out
of the forest and into my backyard in search of water (which is always left out
for anyone who needs a drink), the mama raccoons who’ve brought their babies at
dusk so that I can see and remark upon their cuteness, countless shooting
stars, a lunar eclipse….
And yet, as I continued to
reflect, the stories of the stranded baby ‘possum and the hummingbird came to
mind. Those experiences did not occur
here on the mountain. I rescued the
hummer when we lived in Chino, the
‘possum after we’d moved to a housing track in Rancho Cucamonga.
And so I guess… miracles are
everywhere. Of course, it’s easier to
see these things here on the mountain where Nature still retains the luxury of
being wild and unfettered, so it might be that I will have to look a little
closer, be a bit more attentive to the world around me once I settle in the
valley again. But I’m sure I will have
adventures there as well. Thank goodness
Nature is immutable, that we can go away for years at a time, as Wordsworth
pointed out, and still return to the same “steep and lofty cliffs” to find them
virtually unchanged. There’s a certain
comfort in that, as if it were possible to place a bookmark in time, and by
returning to the physical place, return to some point in our past. It sounds like magic, I know, but that’s why
the mountain is so alluring… because the magic is so strong here.
