And Then They Said…

Listen to this blog

Ducks and geese are on the river this morning swimming south to north, squawking and talking to each other all at the same time and to their friends across the water. It is cold, though not quite freezing. I wonder why they haven’t yet taken off for warmer climes. By the time I share this blog in early January, they may have left, though some will stay all winter and consider the Eastern Shore of Maryland their seasonal south.

When spring comes, the ducks and geese will fly north to spend summer months in Canada or wherever they go. But it is reassuring that they are still here so that when I wake before dawn, bundle up and sit outside to watch the sun rise, I can also watch them swim by. As light slowly lifts the darkness, before the sun ascends between the trees across the river, the geese and ducks begin their conversations.

I wonder what they say. I am certain they are not talking about my country’s politics either mournfully, exultantly, or resignedly. The President and cabinet of the U.S. government has no meaning or reference to them any more than the emphatic cause of their noisy conversation does to me though we exist together on this cold and beautiful morning. But I do learn from them and pause to watch and listen. I learn, or re-learn, that the universe is broad and complex, that there are points of view I don’t comprehend, that the governing power of us all is far greater than national politics and, I believe, more benign than we comprehend, distracted as we get by our insistent points of view.

I long for, and acknowledge a bit of a utopian point of view, that we might recognize the best in each other and allow that to develop without battle and retribution. I also acknowledge that this is not the way the human species always behaves, at least at this moment.

Yet it is worth taking a moment at the start of the new year to lift the gaze, appreciate the rising sun, the course of ducks and geese and other creatures we share this planet with, to listen in that moment in order to see and hear a larger wisdom which can inspire. Whether that inspiration dawns today or another, I feel certain that it is there and that the world around us will proceed. The sun will rise and set. The river will flow out to sea and the ducks and geese will keep talking.

Suddenly there is a stir, a burst of noise moving closer, almost like a giant machine approaching. At least a hundred geese fly towards the shoreline squawking and talking and settling on the water right in front of my house, almost as if they know I am writing about them and they have more to say, or perhaps they have figured out that here is a safe place because hunters aren’t allowed, and hunting season has begun. In James Michener’s novel Chesapeake he noted that the ducks and geese learn over time where the safe places are and communicate with each other…perhaps a “kinship with all life” and go there. In any case, the finale to these morning thoughts is a cacophony (or is it a symphony?) of geese and ducks on the river in front of me, though if they venture up on the lawn, my fearless small dog will bark and chase them back into the water. That is her conversation and contribution. They will squawk at her, but they will flutter and cede the lawn and return to the river.

Without preconception or planning or hidden meaning this final scene turns out to be the denouement to my morning thoughts.