A snowy egret has claimed the creek as his. I say “his” because he defends it, raucously, and I am anthropomorphising. No gentle gossamer evanescence, he, despite his delicate affect. It is only a thousand feet of creek but it is his, and each glimpse of another’s white plumes is met with a loud guttural cry, flashing talons, a wicked beak. His armament can take down the wariest frog, the sleekest steelhead fry: it will suffice to deter any rival egrets who dare sully his territorial waters.
Each morning I walk Zeke down to the park and the egret is there. Sun rises. We walk down the hill, the frost melting from the roofs we pass. The egret descends northward to the same spot on the creek. We climb the hill toward home, and I carry Zeke when he can walk no farther. In the evening we return, and Zeke stares into the old-dog darkness for twenty minutes. The egret calls warnings from the bank. I carry Zeke up the hill again.
This past month it has been difficult to distinguish waking life from dreams. I sleep and have sober, productive conversations, addressing unfinished business with people I have not seen in years. I wake: life is surreal, random encounters with wildlife fraught with meaning. The next night negotiations resume where we had left them the night before.
I have run but little the last month, recovering from a fever the first week of November that became, and still is, a persistent cough. I ease myself back into the routine. Last night I left the house just as the sun dropped down west of Mount Tamalpais, and San Pablo Bay was draped in vermilion. The geese were there when I reached the creek, a dozen of them in formation heading for the bay. I stopped for a moment to watch them pass out of sight, Canada geese flying northward in December. There came a whistling sound overhead: cold air scraping against the wings of mallards in flight. There were hundreds of them following the geese, a half-dozen at a time passing me as I ran, flashes of black against a violet sky.
I dreamed of agendas and voice mail maintenance.
A month ago on our fifteenth anniversary I took Zeke to the beach, a calm sandy cove I’d found with my brother the month before. He did not venture near the water, but stood looking out over the small waves, apparently content. Two hundred geese flew along the shore twenty feet above us, these headed properly southward. He has good days and bad, and the bad gain in frequency. A week later his legs gave out at the park, and I rolled him over on his side on the lawn to rest for a while. He usually goes to sleep almost immediately when I do this, luxuriating in the sun and the breeze off the hills. That morning he lingered at the edge of waking, eyes closed, ears straining to follow yet another skein of geese as I stroked his flank. “Are you going to fly away with them, Zekie dog? Do you need to fly away with them?” He opened his eyes, watched the geese arc south and past the redwoods.
Snowy egret fell soft to the creekbed, landed in the shallows behind a gravel bar, folded its wings.
Welcome back Chris and Zeke from a lurker fan.
That last sentence will see me through the week.
Greetings.
I went back to see the egret again, but it was a re-egretable experience.
(Sorry.:)
Thanks for this report, Chris. Very moving.
Thanks for writing this. Just yesterday MrsDoF was asking me why I wanted to spend time out in the wilderness.
Chris—
Thank you.
This is good writing.
If I didn’t like this writing so much I could grow to dislaike you, for you make composition seem effortless.
Not at all my own experience in writing, where I have to assault each sentence with brutality, flensing away unneeded text. And all too often am left with nothing.
Not to imply that Zeke is dying, but here’s a lovely Elegy for the Dying Dog by Daniel Anderson.
That is lovely, Amanda. Thanks. I’ve put it in my collection next to the Neruda.
And Zeke is dying. But it’s a slow thing, and tonight he is feeling better than he was last night.
I couldn’t sleep, turned on the computer and found my friends are back. I’ve miss the words Chris. Even though they are sometimes exquisitely sad, I’ve missed the words.
Those are beautiful poems.
with those eyes so much purer than mine
Chris must be back. I’m weeping again. And not only because of Dave’s egretious pun.
It’s great to see you back, writing.
Good to see you back Chris.
Thanks for your thoughts on Tongass. Dogs like he and Zeke were/are true friends indeed.
I was just wondering…are you an ecologist by training who writes (incredibly well I might add), or a writer who became a naturalist on your own? I’ve worked in the plant ecology/geospatial analysis field for 20some years now and wish I could write half as good as you.
Good to see you back and give Zeke a great big hug for me!