Coming Home

FIELD NOTES.

The hellebore pokes up through the still frozen detritus of winter. Bright green, it is the only color on the swamp floor. The geese honk in their territorial wars. Breeding boundaries must be drawn. A flock of wood ducks paddles among the warring geese and swallows rise and dive, dip and fall, in search of prey too small for me to see. A fox sparrow puffs up on a branch beside me, displaying for an uninterested female. The season is young still. A merganser emerges from the cattails and a flock of geese honks in alarm, flaps its wings, and concedes the territory.

I have no reason to be here. This is not my world. I sit on a log waiting for something to happen. The red maples are budding. I examine a blossom with my hand lens. So much of my world is about optics. Microscope, hand lens, glasses, binoculars, telephoto lens. Through which lens do I perceive reality? Today this world is gray sky, black water, the dull bones of trees, and the pale grasses. Yet, it is so alive with sound and promise. Wood frogs cluck, tree frog songs reverberate in my ears, a woodpecker drums, a squirrel chatters at me, the geese honk, and the wind rustles through the cattails. A blue heron flies across the far side of the water, extends its spindly legs and stretches out its wings as it touches down on the remains of a nest floating on the water, a casualty of winter winds and ice. For twenty-five years I have watched these herons return to this nest, breed, and raise their young. The heron stays a few minutes and moves on. I wonder where it will build a new nest.

A chickadee perches on a branch beside me, scolds me, and then lands on my head. The sun burns through the gray. The dark waters of the wetland bring me home again.