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Days of Queen Anne's Lace and Goldenrod
I'm sitting in our yard, beneath our crab-apple tree, with a cricket or some other musical insect serenading me from the other side of the flower bed. Today is the most gorgeous day - the sky is a clean-washed blue and it's been unrepentantly sunny, with temperatures in the 60s. I stepped out of the door last evening to help Rachel bring in groceries, and I felt it on my skin - fall coming. This morning, it was even stronger. I thought of pumpkins and drying grasses and tea all the way to work, and at lunch, I went for a walk. I couldn't pass up this beautiful day!
Actually, I've been going for a walk pretty much every day recently. The temperatures calmed down a little last week so that I could actually go outside at lunch without overheating, and on the first day, I walked out to the field behind my office that I discovered after I learned that the nearby woods I used to walk through had been torn down. It's such a haven - the forest path to the field is a green tunnel, carpeted in grass and flowers. That day I stopped by a particularly interesting tree, one that's been broken off about fifteen feet up and is now completely engulfed in leafy vines. My walks aren't very strenuous - I stop a lot to look at things - and when I turned away from the tree there was a huge feather lying right in front of me on the path. It's more than a foot long, brown and white striped, pristine. I picked it up and carried it with me.
Upon stepping into the field, there's a slight rise, and at the top, you can see all the way to the treeline (with the highway on the other side) on the left and all the way across the pond on the right. An enormous bird was winging its way slowly over the trees - a great blue heron - and I heard this sound, a cry, like a seagull, only longer, keener. I thought it might be the heron, but then a hawk swooped up from the forest, and I knew that's what it had to be. It flew over me, circling and crying, so triumphant. I think it may have been a broad-winged hawk, but we have so many red-tailed hawks near my office that it could've been that as well.
That day I heard frogs jumping into the pond. I saw a thousand butterflies (yellow ones, white ones, brown ones, and flocks of tiny pale blue ones). Grasshoppers scattered like raindrops. On the way back through the forest, I found one half of a tiny white eggshell, speckled with black. It's on my altar now, with the feather. That night, I dreamed of sailing in a little wooden boat, and a female osprey flew beside me, so close I could stroke her back. I could tell she was female because the females have brown markings on their white chests that look like a necklace.
The next day, when I went back, I watched fish swim around in the pond. And on Friday, I went back again, and everywhere I looked, something moved out of the corner of my eye. At first I just thought they were grasshoppers, but I would see one land and then bend down to get a closer look - and nothing would be there. This happened over and over, and I walked down by the lake again and wandered toward where I could hear some water-birds playing, flapping their wings against the surface. I swear I saw a gray frog (gray like granite, not any color I've ever seen on a frog before) jump from the path into the grass at the edge, but when I looked closer, there was nothing, not a stirring. Something that big would surely cause movement in the grass as it scurried away, right? On my way back at the pond, I heard birds chirping - it sounded a bit like a cardinal I saw there today - and I looked and looked, but couldn't see them. This isn't unusual, but the unusual thing was this: I heard the same chirping coming from a clump of tall grass right near the path, and I went over to look inside. It sounded so close - right under my nose - but for all my tentative poking and moving aside of sticks, there was nothing in there. The chirping continued, though, and I was afraid I would hurt whatever it was or startle it, so I moved away, and then I heard the chirping above me - across the path - in this part of the sky and then that - right over my head, like it was circling me, but there was nothing there. I told Rachel about it later, and she was like "The faeries sure had a good time with you today!" And I went "...Oh." Suddenly everything made sense!
Today I brought them a little piece of bread in a heart-shaped milkweed husk that I picked up in the area last winter. I put it by the clump of grass and thanked them for playing with me. Funny how I spent my childhood desperately searching for some sign of faeries, and it's only now that I'm an adult that I'm really getting to know them.
Actually, I've been going for a walk pretty much every day recently. The temperatures calmed down a little last week so that I could actually go outside at lunch without overheating, and on the first day, I walked out to the field behind my office that I discovered after I learned that the nearby woods I used to walk through had been torn down. It's such a haven - the forest path to the field is a green tunnel, carpeted in grass and flowers. That day I stopped by a particularly interesting tree, one that's been broken off about fifteen feet up and is now completely engulfed in leafy vines. My walks aren't very strenuous - I stop a lot to look at things - and when I turned away from the tree there was a huge feather lying right in front of me on the path. It's more than a foot long, brown and white striped, pristine. I picked it up and carried it with me.
Upon stepping into the field, there's a slight rise, and at the top, you can see all the way to the treeline (with the highway on the other side) on the left and all the way across the pond on the right. An enormous bird was winging its way slowly over the trees - a great blue heron - and I heard this sound, a cry, like a seagull, only longer, keener. I thought it might be the heron, but then a hawk swooped up from the forest, and I knew that's what it had to be. It flew over me, circling and crying, so triumphant. I think it may have been a broad-winged hawk, but we have so many red-tailed hawks near my office that it could've been that as well.
That day I heard frogs jumping into the pond. I saw a thousand butterflies (yellow ones, white ones, brown ones, and flocks of tiny pale blue ones). Grasshoppers scattered like raindrops. On the way back through the forest, I found one half of a tiny white eggshell, speckled with black. It's on my altar now, with the feather. That night, I dreamed of sailing in a little wooden boat, and a female osprey flew beside me, so close I could stroke her back. I could tell she was female because the females have brown markings on their white chests that look like a necklace.
The next day, when I went back, I watched fish swim around in the pond. And on Friday, I went back again, and everywhere I looked, something moved out of the corner of my eye. At first I just thought they were grasshoppers, but I would see one land and then bend down to get a closer look - and nothing would be there. This happened over and over, and I walked down by the lake again and wandered toward where I could hear some water-birds playing, flapping their wings against the surface. I swear I saw a gray frog (gray like granite, not any color I've ever seen on a frog before) jump from the path into the grass at the edge, but when I looked closer, there was nothing, not a stirring. Something that big would surely cause movement in the grass as it scurried away, right? On my way back at the pond, I heard birds chirping - it sounded a bit like a cardinal I saw there today - and I looked and looked, but couldn't see them. This isn't unusual, but the unusual thing was this: I heard the same chirping coming from a clump of tall grass right near the path, and I went over to look inside. It sounded so close - right under my nose - but for all my tentative poking and moving aside of sticks, there was nothing in there. The chirping continued, though, and I was afraid I would hurt whatever it was or startle it, so I moved away, and then I heard the chirping above me - across the path - in this part of the sky and then that - right over my head, like it was circling me, but there was nothing there. I told Rachel about it later, and she was like "The faeries sure had a good time with you today!" And I went "...Oh." Suddenly everything made sense!
Today I brought them a little piece of bread in a heart-shaped milkweed husk that I picked up in the area last winter. I put it by the clump of grass and thanked them for playing with me. Funny how I spent my childhood desperately searching for some sign of faeries, and it's only now that I'm an adult that I'm really getting to know them.