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diff --git a/76613-0.txt b/76613-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..66d5c1a --- /dev/null +++ b/76613-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4975 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76613 *** + + + NATURE’S YEAR + + + + + _Books by John Hay_: + + + A PRIVATE HISTORY + THE RUN + NATURE’S YEAR + + [Illustration] + + + + + JOHN HAY + + _NATURE’S + YEAR_ + + _The Seasons of Cape Cod_ + + + ILLUSTRATED BY + DAVID GROSE + + + _1961 + Doubleday & Company, Inc. + Garden City, New York_ + + + + + _Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 61-8166 + Copyright © 1961 by John Hay + All Rights Reserved + Printed in the United States of America + First Edition_ + + + + + _For Kristi, Susan, Kitty, Rebecca, and Charles Mark--with me on this + journey through the year_ + + + + + Contents + + + _July_ _11_ + + A Start on Cape Cod--An Entry--Other Lands within + the “Narrow Land” + + _August_ _25_ + + A Wild Home Land--The Musicians--A Walk with an + Oven Bird--Toward the Sea + + _September_ _47_ + + Youth on the Move--An Open Shore--Chipmunks + + _October_ _61_ + + Where Is Home?--The Field of Learning--Colors of the + Season--The Last Day in October + + _November_ _81_ + + The Seed in the Season--The Clouds--The Inconstant + Land--The Dead and the Living + + _December_ _97_ + + An Old Place, an Old Man--Night in the Afternoon--Two + Encounters + + _January_ _113_ + + Exposure--Ice on the Ponds--Contrast and Response + + _February_ _127_ + + Secrets in the Open--The Sea in the Ground--Need--Death, + Man Made + + _March_ _143_ + + Restless Days--An Extravagance--Interpretation--Response + + _April_ _161_ + + Deeper News--April Light--“Frightened Away” + + _May_ _173_ + + Declarations--Facets of Expression--Travel + + _June_ _187_ + + The Garden--Room to Spare--The Binding Rain + + + + + _July_ + + + + + _A Start on Cape Cod_ + + +I drove to Cape Cod with travelers from everywhere. I came to this +narrow peninsula over the blistering, insatiable roads of America with +the summer crowd--in my shirt sleeves, with dark glasses to protect my +sight--conscious of almost nothing but cars, and casualties ... our +migrations have them too, like the birds and fish. + +I saw an accident so terrible I could not describe it. Machines were +flung into the air and smashed. A life was tossed away, a human being +crushed like a doll. Human relationships were pathetically severed +by the brutality of chance. Then we were allowed to go on--travelers +racing down the highway through the blood-boiling heat of the sun. We +come in with speed and we go away with speed, and we are both afraid +and desirous of it. The human run in its relentless self-absorption +seems more abstracted than any other natural force. + +The resident population of Cape Cod is some 80,000, and in July the +number increases to an estimated 250,000 or more, a kind of barometric +rise that is equivalent to what is happening in the earth at large. +After Labor Day, when the summer tribe has gone back to the cities, +relief comes. You can cross the road in comparative safety. Then, +something like apathy pervades the Cape, as if its diminished society +were trying to recover from an encounter with enormous odds. + +Now I am off the road and back on the 110-foot hill where we put our +house--part of a ridge that runs along the glacial moraine about a mile +back from Cape Cod Bay. Dry Hill was its local name, and in fact, +driving a well, we found a constant source of water only at 130 feet. +This evening the yellow light runs liquidly through the oak trees and +the pitch pines around us. I can hear the voices of some of my travel +companions lifting from the shore, calling, pleading, protesting. A +snatch of radio music comes in. A plane drones overhead. The warm air +seems to breathe hard, as if to compete with human breath. + +I often wonder, when I am back on the Cape again, whether I chose the +right place in which to live. It looks bare and scrubby, lean and +poor, in comparison with those lands to the north and west of us which +are far prouder in their trees. It has been burned over, cut down, +and generally abused by man, and most of its healthy trees will never +attain full growth because of the salt spray that the winds drive over +them in many storms. And the sea, for all its surrounding presence, +seems a mere backdrop a great deal of the time, a flatness along the +horizon, but it is indomitably there. All the winds, the plants, the +shores, the contours of this low land, are influenced by it, and +because of it we are carried out into a distance in spite of ourselves. +The sea mitigates our insularity. + +Cape Cod reefs out into the Atlantic. I saw our house when it was +new as a ship above the trees. I imagined a voyage. I recognize that +although there are some true fishermen here who sail the year around, +the rest of us are summer sailors, with no lasting allegiance or +commitment to the dangers of salt water. Yet the Cape provides space +for whoever might take the risk or pleasure of finding it. The sea and +sky are very wide. The winds blow in from all quarters. + +The yellow evening lowers now, through the young, shining leaves of +the oak trees, creating new recesses of darkness. Tides of fire hang +above the water. There are snatches of bird song through the woods: a +robin; the silver pealing of a wood thrush; a towhee; a whippoorwill, +starting in on its over-and-over-again, the loud repetitious whistling +that makes the night known even as the day hangs on. And finally faint +stirrings here and there, easings down, last faint pips and trills +before the dark. I am conscious of the tenancy of nature, in which +there is more putting forth, more endurance, more population, in +fact, than any visitor or local man might ever begin to realize. The +great world we live in is no longer one for hide-outs. If this makes +for intolerable pressure and despair, it also brings much more into +view. Local recognition becomes a general need, and there are more +possibilities in it than we have been told. While the human race has +been approaching three billions in number, and making ready to put its +mark on the moon or hang its hearing aids off Venus, I seem to have +spent many years missing, or unwittingly avoiding, almost as many lives +and chances close to home. How can I begin to compensate? + + + _An Entry_ + +I had decided to start this book in July, with the idea that this was +the time embodying the full, crowded height of life--the noise, the +color, the jostle of creatures in wonderful variety, just like that +load of passengers getting off the boat at Provincetown to see the +sights. The leaves are fresh. The motions of greed and fulfillment are +in full course. Even so, I hardly knew what riches to snatch at first. +In fact, another bold, heat-heavy day, with its crowds and its pride of +accident, had the effect of making me recoil. I was muttering: “Slow +down. Slow down. Why so thick and fast?” + +On my way back from walking to the mailbox just now, I stepped off the +road into the oak trees through which it runs, dropped the newspapers +and the letters, watched and waited. I sat on the upper edge of a +hollow where dappled shadows rocked lightly between the trees, on their +gray trunks, and across the sloping ground. There was a pervading swish +of leaves around me, an occasional stirring at the tree tops. I heard +the slow, dragged caroling of a red-eyed vireo. Filtered light played +on the low growth of sarsaparilla, hazelnut, huckleberry, and bracken, +or dry land fern, with the brown floor of oak leaves in dead but useful +attendance, holding moisture, shelter, and fruition in reserve. + +The wood had a climate of its own, cooler, darker than the hot, damp, +wide open world of road and shore. There are climates within climates, +as there are worlds within worlds. Under the bark of a tree the beetle +inhabits a place that has special atmospheric conditions differing from +the woods outside it; and so it is with the woodchuck in its hole, the +ants in their hill. Any place, of whatever size, however endowed in +our scheme of things with grandeur or insignificance, any home, may be +greatly subtle in its variance. + +A sweet, plaintive “pee-a-wee,” and a wood peewee, a neat little bird, +black, light gray, and white like a phoebe, but with white wing bars, +flew in quickly and lightly, to perch on a gray limb. The bird would +tuck its head down, and then move it from side to side, looking for +flying insects, repeating its song every five seconds or so. Its tail, +not bobbing like a phoebe’s, twitched very slightly when its head +moved. Then, in brief action, it fluttered out, caught an insect, and +returned to its perch. These little flights covered most of the area +around its tree, almost methodically. Once I heard the crack of its +bill as it chased a fly almost down to the ground, halfway across the +wood. It alighted on a new branch--to try out another base of action? +But then another peewee flew in, perched, and sang at a far corner of +the hollow, and the first one hurriedly flew back to its original perch +as if it had been threatened and was making sure of its position. The +wood seemed strung together by the intangible threads of their motion. + +[Illustration] + +These were some of the ways by which a wood peewee follows its +destiny, employing its chosen place, attending to minutiae, to duty +and performance. This was appropriate use, measured necessity. And +as the outer earth led to this part of the wood, and it in turn to +the “micro-climates” within it, so the birds drew my attention to the +insects. I had been bitten a little, just enough to remind me, in my +enjoyment, that the place was not unnaturally hospitable; and there +were unseen spider mites that would leave me some inflammations to +remember them by. Now I searched the space above me, aware, through +the flights of the peewee, of the flying life it pursued. Some flies +hovered, rocking lightly in the air, and then swung abruptly to one +side, or dropped away, buzzing insistently. Tiny midges, illumined by +sunlight, waggled between the trees. Moths fluttered down briefly to +touch the pale leaves they resembled. + +So I had been filled, as I sat there, with a sense of employment. +I was part of a quiet, steady, structure of action. What better +“security” could I find than that--learning, feeling, that a prodigious +energy held all component parts in place and made them dance. In the +neatness, discipline, almost detachment, of the bird’s little game as +it pursued its subsistence, I saw the working out of natural law in +numberless parallels. + +Perhaps there was a law to be learned for _me_. If nature is more than +just a background for human thought and endeavor, then it requires a +special commitment, a stepping down, a silent, respectful approach. +Otherwise we are liable to hear ourselves first, and be put off. + +I have been given an entry, but not on my own terms. + + + _Other Lands within the “Narrow Land”_ + +To answer the question “Where am I?” seems not to be an easy thing. +“Obviously” this is the vacation land of Cape Cod where the sun sends +the bathers to the beaches and the rain drives them back inland to buy +souvenirs, where the harbors are crowded with pleasure craft and the +highways with cars--an area whose purpose it is to attend to human +distraction. Yet right in the middle of it the action of a small bird +reveals a land of its own; and how many others are there still unmet? + +It is very strange to me that I have known so little about what was +around me, and that I took so long merely to make some inquiries ... +about a few names, a few alliances between living things, just enough +to give me a hint or two about the growing we are never finished with. +We live in a common realm about which we are still half ignorant and +half afraid. + +A little girl at the beach comes running through the shallow waters +crying: “Something touched me, and it wasn’t Daddy!” + +Later on, her mother wonders aloud if crabs bite. She picks one up +and when she gets her answer, screams with pain and anger at all the +“unnatural” and the unknown. + +Just the other side of us is not only a bewildering variety but a +space, which we have still to find, filled with an unfamiliar silence, +or random sounds, seemingly disconnected motions, sudden flights that +we witness out of the corner of an eye. When we only assign the word +“purpose” to ourselves, it is hard to understand just what credit to +give that which only stands and waits, or moves from one place to +another. I sit on the beach, moving a little away from a portable +radio that a man has brought to assure himself of his continuous hold +on human affairs, and look out over the hazy surface of the water, past +a long border of waves that lollop on the sand. There is a large bird +standing on a rock not far offshore. I know it as a great black-backed +gull, a scavenger, a predator, which sometimes eats the eggs and kills +the young of other species of gulls whose nesting islands it shares, +and robs other birds of their food ... and that is about all I know, +aside from having watched its splendid, easy flight. So it stands, and +may stand, for an hour or more at a time, sea-surrounded, glaring out +with expressionless yellow eyes. Is it digesting a heavy meal? Is it +waiting for low tide so that its feeding grounds will be uncovered? Is +it greedy, savage, lazy, and bold? All such questions are tentative. +The subject is aloof. + +Why is there so much hanging around and waiting, so much suspension +in nature? It comes as an occasional surprise to us timekeepers. In +the gull we suspect obliviousness, and yet it may be prompted by the +demands of a space of water, light, air, stretching before and around +it, in its being, of whose motion and sense we are scarcely aware. + +We see very little. I am told that the very sands we sit on are full of +minute organisms. The visible life, perhaps in the form of a few beach +fleas, represents an extremely small percentage of the life unseen, +a condition which has its parallel in the soil. But a short walk or +wade along the shore can give you proof enough, without the need of a +nip from a crab, that the tidal grounds are covered and circulating +with life, a life which in its marine forms might seem small, simple, +primitive, and unallied with much that we landed mammals can understand. + +I cannot inquire much of the moon snail, blindly, slowly moving +across the sands under the tidal waters, with its large foot feeling +for a clam. It only reveals itself to me by outward acts and signs +which do not seem to have much variety. A small hole, countersunk in +a shell, is common proof that a moon snail has drilled in and then +eaten the occupant. When you see a “sand collar,” which this animal +forms of sand grains and eggs, you know another side of its existence. +Perhaps that is all there is to it--eating and reproduction--the round +shellfish mindlessly carrying out its destiny. If it says anything +at all to me it is only out of undeciphered darkness, silence, and +original need. + +A tiny, shrimplike animal hovers in the water, then darts over my +foot, only describing itself to me by its quick motion, and that is +all I know of it. It suddenly buries itself in the sandy bottom, where +reflected sunlight makes golden nets, that stretch and tremble through +the constantly flowing waters. + +The tide ebbs. The sun starts to evaporate the moisture from the top +surface of a big rock, part of a jetty that thrusts out from the beach. +I see a number of dark periwinkles around and under an algae-sheathed, +water-soaked branch that lies there, a source of food for these +browsers and vegetarians. They are a common marine snail, used for +human food in many parts of the world, and usually so numerous and +well known as to be taken for granted. As the water recedes and sinks +below the surface of the jetty, the sun beats down, drying the rock. +Some of the animals stay under the shade and moisture of the stick, but +more begin to move slowly away from it. When these travelers finally +reach the edge of the rock, they start down its shaded face. Their +dark, whorled shells, though an intrinsic part of them, are hoisted, +moved around, almost in a full circle, seeming to slip loosely over +their bodies as they move down. Their black tentacles, like antennae +on insects, wave slightly on their snouts, and their slimy foot works +slowly down. Their motion is a curious combination of probing, oozing, +gliding, and at the same time, holding on, assuring the grip, with a +kind of portentous caution. Since I can easily tip one off with my +finger, I also feel a tenuousness about them, in their relation to this +realm of tidal power with its constant displacements--but adaptability +is probably a better way to think of it. They have lasted, in their +loose wandering, through a period of time which we can only estimate. +They have a special authority. As I watch them it seems to me that no +other action is of any more pressing importance during this moment in +the scheme of things. + +These personifications of motion, these strangers, have untouched lands +of their own. + +That silent sea at my side is colossal, inscrutable, and holds out +no solace or advice. We only have our toes in, on a tiny section of +its summer shore. Most of us barely touch its surface. Even so, it +offers as much to a traveling human as to a snail. It is still an old +space unexplored, and if we leave the vacation sands and set out on an +afternoon’s sail, we may be following some need of wind and water in +us, some unused acquaintance. + +There is a well-known sand bar to steer by in the hazy distance across +Cape Cod Bay. We buck the steely waves upwind, close hauled, half hot +in the sun, half cold and shivering when the water thrashes in over the +bow of the boat. Ropes creak slightly through the boom and the mast. +The wake bubbles. Wood strains through water. The west wind blows stiff +over conflicting waves. The time passes with a certain monotony but for +the craft of sailors and its requirements. There is nothing called for +but to sail, with no other distractions on this immediate flat world of +light, no concern ... and yet we sense some ultimate demand that comes +from this blue giant, whose depths and tricks are still unfathomed. + +The flat necessity of it makes sailing its own satisfaction. It becomes +physical. We fly, we feel, we calculate, by sinew, flesh, and bones, +and through the salty blood in our veins. We may be a degree closer to +the black-backed gull. + +There on arrival are great white sheets of sand curving up into a +barrier of dunes back of a pebbly beach, where a beach buggy rolls +along scaring up clouds and crowds of terns, and sanderlings in +spinning flight. The jeep stops and teen-agers jump down and out, +crying stridently. We anchor the boat just off the beach. The water is +clear and cold. The dunes are sun reflectors, clean and warm, and we +find whitish-gray grasshoppers on them, flecked like the sand. + +Sailing back again in late afternoon, the boat goes fast and free +before the wind over the water now turned green, a blend of sky blue +and the yellow of a falling sun. The bay lies out like an enormous +garden, patched with color and motion, the salt waters full of +latent power, ready with every kind of mood, flowing by and over, +interwrought, crossing time and circumstance. We pass a clanging bell +buoy. Evening comes on. Gold icicles on the water are turning and +softening to shades of pink and purple. It is like striding over a wide +land of peace and plenty, before we tack into the harbor. + + + + + _August_ + + + _A Wild Home Land_ + +What I wanted to do was follow the year around, recognizing that hours, +days, months, or years are as elusive as unseen atoms (even though, +universal law being consistent, we deduce their behavior with some +success). I am not sure where July left off and August began. Summer +flies away from me, like an unknown bird. + +Out into August then, while there is time. When I step into it as if +into something new, I sense thousands and thousands of roving lives, +taking their opportunities where and when they can. The day is hot +and shining. The oak leaves, no longer fresh and young, but spotted +with growths, chewed by insects, frayed and scarred, are still tough, +deeply green, harnessing the sun, under a stir and slide of air. Two +big red-tailed hawks sail high overhead, screaming constantly. A blue +jay screams, in a fair likeness. The hawks wheel lower down along the +trees, inside the horizon. Then two little tree sparrows flit by. +Insects drone, stir, and buzz. There is a dragging, rattling sound of +leaves as a box turtle moves slowly along. A cicada chorus rises like a +sudden breeze from the southeast and then subsides. Two black and white +warblers go through the cover of the woods in a quick butterfly flight +together. The “Tock! Tock!” of a chipmunk sounds behind a brush pile, +almost like the end notes of a whippoorwill’s song. + +I feel a balance in space between them all: the roamers, hawks, or +gulls, in the sky’s great allowance; the spider swinging on a thread +and making its own web of a world; colorful, elusive warblers through +the trees; the chipmunk on its chosen ground. These sounds, synonymous +with motion, seem to hold them in mutual alliance, round in a lightness +of air that is strict and easy in its coming and release, like the +cicadas; but there is an intensity here that makes my heart beat faster. + +A jay jumps down to a branch, cocks its crested head, with those black +eyes full of readiness, and brays. The spider wraps up a captured +moth with rapid skill. A robber fly waits on a leaf with throbbing +abdomen and a look of contained vitality. It is not to be known. I see +the brown, glazed wings folded back in the sunlight, and two black, +sky-light eyes on top of its head. It seems preternaturally lean. It +stays there for ten minutes and I watch it closely, almost suspended +with it in my attention. A robber fly is a tough predator, but to call +it cold, indifferent to pain, careless of life, darkness personified? +Our terms are useless. I do not know. Then my attention is cut, as it +abruptly darts off, swinging in an arc, perhaps to catch a housefly a +hundred feet away. + +In the buzz, the running light, the stir of summer, I feel as if +each motion, each event had its own pressing concern. This homeland, +no longer graced with the name of wilderness, is full of wild, +unparalleled desire. + +Everyone knows that the month of August is loaded with insects, +although they come under the heading of “bugs,” a menace to human +society. Their fibrous trills are incessant in the grass. Their high, +shrill sounds announce the heated air. Those two species that we hate +more than most, just for their familiarity, the flies and mosquitoes, +drone around us. In the heat of noon our senses are a little clouded. +We may be mumbling something about “the will of life be done,” and it +is being done ... in great part by the insects. The summer rage to +take and to share in taking is carried out in minute detail, from the +tiniest mite in the soil to the dragonfly. + +Manifest energy, using its short summer span, fills our surroundings +with its wealth of insects. It has not been long since I was taught +the modicum of knowledge needed to name a few of them, to start in +on a fraction of the 680,000 species that fill the earth; but it was +enough to add to my sight. I had never realized that such foreign and +incredible variety existed so close to me. + +A yellow jacket tugs furiously at a dead cricket on the road, like a +hungry dog with raw meat. Delicate aphids waver on flower stalks. A big +striped cicada killer roams through the oaks. Other wasps sip juice or +nibble carrion. Dragonflies dart across both land and water on their +tangential licks of speed. The cabbage butterflies flutter and alight +with pale, yellow wings held together like one thin sail against the +sunlight. Over and under, in and out, flying, crawling, suspended +in plants and in the growth of plants, seizing their time, waiting, +indefinitely if need be, held in chrysalis or egg, emerging, feeding, +adding to death and life in death ... what are these strangers? + +There are wasps as red as rubies; flies of a more scintillating, +vibrant green than emeralds; and shiny bronze or golden beetles which +are the envy of human art. If color is life, to make the human eyes +ring and the body respond, they have it, and they also lack it. Some +are so diaphanous as to belong only to the sunlit air, and some are so +dark, as though part of unseen depths, that all color is only a dance, +springing away. + +We use up constant, frustrated energy keeping them in check. Their dry +throbbing annoys us. They eat our crops, transmit disease, and drive +us away from our pleasures: although in the bold stare of nature they +are effective employees. We might, slapping a mosquito, recognize their +necessity as pollinators, earth movers, or food, respect the role they +play in decomposition and growth ... then we must turn around and +invent new poisons. Insects are redoubtable enemies. We are never quite +sure which of us is in the ascendancy, just as we are never sure of +what they are. + +Still we can look and marvel at their complex detail: these wings like +lace or spun glass; wings cut short and wide or thin as a hair; wings +with the pattern of flowers, or veins of a leaf; bodies round and +narrow, oval or oblong; strange truncated abdomens; huge, compound +eyes; legs impossibly thin and long, or unbelievable in number and +still co-ordinated; heads like alligators; bodies like sticks; false +eyes; false horns; repulsive, intangible, unreal. + +Here seems to be automatic, nerve-end response in unreflecting zeros, +whose lives pass with their deaths, but still, on this earth crust they +are affiliated with everything. That which may frighten or startle +a bird, like the eye spots on a moth’s wing, is related to a bird. +Animals are adapted to their environments and the medium in which they +live and act; but so many tricks and curiosities are embodied in the +insects, so many far-fetched connections of shape and motion, as to +leave all particular environments behind. + +In their variety they are in balance with our imagination. Don’t +they show as many bursts, tricks, starts, halts, and fires, as +much somnolence and surprise in their color, shape, and action as +we desire in the exercise of our consciousness? Nature is unbiased +in its attention, concentrating equal power on all forms of its +expression. When we begin to conceive of nature in terms of creative +process--continually evolving, fantastically complex, immensely +resourceful--then we recognize our counterparts wherever the sunlight +strikes across the air. We share in a communication. + +Last month I noticed a group of small butterflies on the mauve flower +of a milkweed. They were, as I found out, hairstreak butterflies, with +a dusky, grayish-lavender coloration, and little orange patches on +the lower edge of their wings. When the wings are folded, their hind +tips have tails resembling antennae, which may have the effect of a +protective device to confuse a predator. After I frightened them off, +they returned in a little while to rest on the very same flower. Their +color was not the same as a milkweed’s but in tone and value it was +close enough so as to hide them from view at a fairly short distance. +The flower and the animal were united in a sensitive embodiment of +contrast. + +A few days later I noticed that the flower was gradually paling. Then, +on the twenty-fifth of July, the last blossoms dropped off, and the +butterflies were gone. An obvious affinity, and a mystery at the same +time, of two forms of life in a unique response to nature’s web of +motion. + +It took me a long time to become aware of just how much these +affiliations and responses made up the life of earth, how much of an +elaboration they amounted to. In the past also, when I saw a robin +hop across the lawn, a frog jump into the water, or a tree swallow +glide through the air, I reacted with pleasure or disregard--by +chance, in other words--without realizing just how big a role chance +played in their appearance. In the same sense the obvious upheavals +of a season--drought, or heavy rains--meant little to me beyond their +immediate, local effect. After a while I began to be aware of all the +circumstances that must surround me. One dull day I realized their +unlimited context, and thought how slow and agonizing my own changes +were in comparison. + +Expected things happen. But the variations are just as compelling as +the stable order from which they come. This June, for example, was +cold and wet, and the rains continued into the summer months. The +hatching of insects was delayed and the development of some plants and +grasses. Many fledgling tree swallows were found dead in their nests, +a disaster which seems to have been caused directly by the weather. +Aquatic insects are a favorite food of the tree swallows, but in cold, +wet weather these insects tend to remain in immature stages and do +not develop into flying adults. (Swallows chase after their food in +flight.) And, in fact, when insects are few, the tree swallows seem to +be discouraged from looking for them. If such conditions keep up, they +may leave a nesting area to look for food elsewhere. + +Our local run of alewives, those inland herring that migrate from salt +water every spring to spawn in fresh-water ponds, seemed to be a little +later than usual; and the young, hatched from the eggs they left behind +them, started down to salt water past schedule in July. If the ponds +are colder in temperature than is normal, it probably affects the young +alewives’ size and chance of survival. They grow larger and healthier +in warm-water ponds because they are started sooner and have a richer +supply of food. A smaller, slightly weaker fish is more easily caught +by a predator. + +Because this spring was somewhat off the average mark (and in a sense +there is no average), many of the relationships between plants and +animals dependent on it were altered. Some of the effects, in animal +population or health, might be felt for a long time to come. + +Although ice, fire, storms, hurricanes, unusually wet or dry seasons, +and now the hand of man, may alter the local earth almost beyond +recognition and bring its inhabitants to disaster, natural occurrence +has an indomitable will. Its changes outlast all others. Uncounted +lives are sent ahead, balanced always, but with relationships through +time and space that are never exactly the same. A leaf drops earlier. +Frogs start to shed their skins, or migrate locally at a time that +depends on new climactic conditions. Why have I seen so few mole runs +this year? Last year there were comparatively few baltimore orioles. +This year in orange pride they were leaf calling and diving everywhere. +I have seen very few phoebes in our vicinity of late, and scarcely +any bluebirds. There may be more mosquitoes this summer and fewer +grasshoppers than usual. I can inquire, for each species, and find out +what I want to know, if there is logic, and cause and effect to its +behavior; but all are related in a realm that is wider than I ever +imagined. + + + _The Musicians_ + +Many Augusts, singing loud, have passed me by without my giving them +a shred of attention. What made the sound? The air, or the trees, +the month itself, embodied in unknown voices? I don’t think I knew +much more than that, although I suppose I was aware of what a cricket +sounded like. Perhaps it is time to find out more. I know now, as I +did then, that at night when the air is soft and cool, a multitude of +separate actions having died down, and when the earth is relieved of +a fire taken to the stars, a plainsong goes up and the night takes +substance in pulsing sound. + +When I listen, I see that in detail the sounding of an August night +is not melodious. It is full of clicks, dry rasps, ratchets, reedy, +resinous scrapings, and except for countless populations playing on +one string, disassociated. There is only one phrase for each species +of insect. The over-all sound is occasionally reminiscent of telegraph +wires, mechanically shrill and tense; but in the context of the night, +speckled with stars, it becomes as wide, warm, and luminous as any +symphony. + +Having heard of using a flashlight to search for these musicians, I +go out, sometime after eight-thirty, and start training it on sounds, +with complete lack of success at first. Either the sound stops, or the +animal that makes it is invisible to me. A bat flies overhead, chasing +insects. It is known for accuracy, having ears with a receptiveness +like radar, tuned to the finest measurements of space, but its flight +seems frantic. It beats back and forth, around, over and under. +Suddenly it is very close, perhaps a few inches over my head. I duck +at the leathery, fluttering sound, something like the rippling folds +of a taut chute, despite my knowing that only in lingering myth and +hearsay do bats catch in human hair. Then it is off again, with its +violent, erratic flight. + +The darkness takes deeper hold. It is full of the loud throbbing, the +insistently high-pitched rasping of the insects, with an occasional +tree frog sounding a contrapuntal “Ek-ek.” Playing my flashlight under +the trees shows up a spider web in beautiful detail. The silk strands +are clear against the black night, their swoops and whorls all held +together by long perfected execution, with the tiny engineer way up on +his round span, his semblance of the globe in its vast waters. + +In high suspension, in the larger silences of the sky, all rings well +in consonance, and the pulse of living instruments is with the massed +stars that run out and dive away above all heads, and with the ground, +my heart and ear, my blood and bone. + +A persistent light racheting makes me concentrate on one bush, where I +eventually find a green, well-camouflaged, long-horned grasshopper with +orange eyes--a male, since it has no ovipositor on its abdomen. The +females are silent, with the honored role of being courted and invited. + +The flashlight seems to have no effect on him. The front wings are +slightly apart, raised up a little, and vibrating ... a kind of +fast, dry shuddering. The sound is a light “zzz,” ending with a +rapid “tic-tic-tic.” This grasshopper is a waxy green. His antennae, +almost twice as long as his body, go up in sweeping curves, and wave, +sometimes both together in a semicircle, sometimes singly in both +directions, as he stops his playing, and begins to move slightly down a +twig. Then I notice a female moving in his direction. Had he increased +the tempo of his playing when she came near? Did he sense success? + +Still harder to spot--almost impossible by day, and difficult enough +at night--are the snowy tree crickets, but they are numerous in this +low-treed, shrubby area. Where the long-horned grasshoppers sound at +intervals, the combined chorus of snowy tree crickets pulses on. They +are slender little creatures, a very pale, almost immaterial, green, +but their fragile, transparent, membranous wings, raised higher than +those of a long-horned when it plays, make a cry that rises up like +peepers in the spring. This is the famous “temperature cricket” whose +song speeds up or slows down in response to heat or cold. According +to the field manuals, you can divide the number of notes per minute +by four and then add forty, which will give you the approximate +temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. + +So this great scraping and fiddling perpetuates a dance. The first +frost will end the lives of most of these musicians. August’s +high sounding means a coming end, but all of its connections and +associations join in sending on the year. This is what the month means, +as well as the hum of tourists driving down the Cape and back again. +Listen to the chosen string. + +There is a miraculous sensitivity in the cricket that slows down when +the temperature begins to cool at night, or even when a cloud passes +over the sun by day. The male calls to attract the female, though it +is apparently not known whether her arrival may not be the result of +happenstance. His playing is as much a part of general expression as +individual intention or reaction. In any case the eggs are laid, which +will stay dormant throughout the winter, to hatch in the spring. The +organic cycle continues, making an announcement, sending up a music +whose players are so attuned to light and dark, sunlit or clouded +skies, warm air or cold, day or night, that their existence depends +upon the slightest change. + + + _A Walk with an Oven Bird_ + +The broader aspects of the weather are more apparent to my kind +of receptiveness, which is less mortally tuned to degrees than a +grasshopper. There is still an abnormal amount of rain as the month +goes on. Their sun blotted out, many tourists have left the Cape +earlier than usual. I notice that the days are shorter and cooler. The +prevailing wind, southwest in fair weather, southeast before a storm, +blows gently, or in gusts when it rains. A big mud puddle on our wood +road has collected a whole population of green frogs. At night there is +great frog carnage on the wet highways. I have noticed in the past that +this is their season for traveling, whether it is wet or dry, but heavy +rains encourage their migration, sending them far and wide. There is a +multitude of garden toads around the house. One night it cools down to +about 50 degrees and in the dawn hour the leaves are bluish gray with +dew. A hurricane, spawned in the Bahamas, is two hundred miles east of +Florida, but beginning to turn slightly to the north, away from the +eastern seaboard. High seas are predicted in three or four days’ time. + +I feel as though we were hesitating on the brink of new necessities, +swinging between one resolution and another not yet found. The season +is beginning to join the winds. Some migrant birds have already flown +away. Other birds fly through the leaf canopy feeding seriously and +silently. A warbler, a female yellow-throat, skips lightly along a +patch of briar and vines. A brilliant oriole jumps into a patch of oaks +and moves on down sunlight-yellow ramps of leaves, and a black-billed +cuckoo, a large brown bird with a handsome, long tail, stops in on +a branch with a look of eagerness and seeking, then flashes off again. +There is a change in their action and timing. The adults are long since +through with the claiming and proclaiming that rang in the woods before +they nested. The steady, constant business of feeding their young is +about over for most species, though I see a flicker, or yellowhammer, +come through the trees in diving, shooting flight, with a young one +following loudly after it. There are many fledglings, but on the whole +the birds, many of them starting to molt, are silent compared with +spring and early summer. + +[Illustration] + +This wood road of ours, where the birds fly through, is used every +school-day morning by our children on their way to catch the bus. It is +a kind of open line through change. It rides the side of a low ridge, +and glacial hollows dip away from it. It once served as a wagon road +for woodcutters, and is still shaded by the insistent, if none too +“sturdy,” oaks, which come back again and again, no matter how many +times they are cut. They make the road a green tunnel in summer, and +their gray branches with knotted fingers rattle and sway above it in +the wintertime. It receives many travelers by land and some by sea. (A +few Januaries ago I found a dovekie there, a little sea bird with the +black back, short black wings, and white breast of a penguin. It is one +of the members of the auk family, breeding in Greenland and migrating +down from the ice-locked waters of the Arctic Circle to feed in the +Atlantic during the winter. Its short wings are meant for swimming, +diving, and flying in and out of waves, so they are not very effective +when blown inland by a storm. The dovekie I found was unable to take +off, and in any case weak and hungry. So after a futile effort to feed +it, I took it back to Cape Cod Bay, where it started to fly along the +surface of the water, though weakly, in short, floundering dashes.) + +With a half mile of concentrated road it is easier to take cognizance +of friends and strangers than when you are trying to make California +on the transcontinental highway. You can see how it is used by skunk, +squirrel, deer, and the hunters of deer. I walk it in expectation. +One of the animals that constantly move across the road and live +in the woods beside it is that bird which looks like a tiny thrush +but is classified as a wood warbler, the oven bird. Its “Teacher! +Teacher!” rings out in spring and early summer. It was named after its +leaf-hidden nest, made on the ground, with a hole going in at the side +like a Dutch oven. + +Here is an oven bird, tail bobbing slightly, perched on the lower +branches of a red maple beside the road ... a little more out in the +open than usual, less concentrated on its earlier nesting territory. +It flutters down to the road. This is one of those birds that have +the distinction, if that is what it is, of being able to walk, rather +than hop or run. So it starts walking, through the dappled shadows on +the road, as I keep a respectable distance behind it. Or perhaps I +walk and it attends to business. The oven bird goes back and forth, +pecking insects, with a quick meandering, interrupted by an occasional +little jump at the leaves of an overhanging shrub or plant. This is not +a straight walker, no Indian with a destination, but its body moves +constantly from left to right in purposeful flexibility. + +“How well you see!” I think to myself. I can see nothing at my level +but a tiny yellow caterpillar swinging through the air on a silken +thread. But it is clear to me that the oven bird works the road with +clear results. We keep going. We come to a stretch in full sunlight +where the trees stand off to the side, and my companion keeps to the +shadows with determination, pecking away at insects along the few +inches of shaded bank to one side. A flicker bursts through, shouting: +“Tawicka! Tawicka!” and the oven bird flies ahead a few feet and then +goes on walking. + +We have now traveled about an eighth of a mile. Under a heavy weave +of leaves the bird moves to left and right over the road, pecking for +insects, working, progressing. Olive brown; capped with an orange +stripe; with speckled breast and pale pink legs ... a shadow bird, +a leaf litter bird; and now a fellow walker, that has made more use +of this road than any of us and our omnivorous machines. At a sharp +bend in the road where it leads up to the house, the oven bird finally +flies off and disappears in the trees, in a southerly direction by +coincidence. Our walk is over, but the flight of birds will leave all +cars behind. + + + _Toward the Sea_ + +There is “man” and there is “nature.” But do we really know where the +climate of existence starts, where its storms are brewed? All weather +is unexpected. Another variation in the known routine, another change +in use, and we may move, reluctantly, into some new awareness while +primal energy bowls on with infinite capacity. + +Among the oaks the leaves on the top branches sway and rustle, while +those on the wood floor scarcely lift at all, but there is a constant +sound of air among them, and it might be possible to hear a ferment in +the ground. Small suns blaze through round leaf lobes. Standing on a +slope toward the north from which the glaciers came, and the auroras +crackle, shimmer, and flow, and the cold from Canada will have its +way, I have a feeling of portentous motion, of being sledded out on a +speeding globe. + +The hurricane veered off. There was rain, but no great winds. The mud +puddle in the road dried up after several sunny days, and the green +frogs left; but when it filled up again they had not returned. The +frogs have a different motion in them and will not come back to suit my +metronome. + +Many vacationers are going home. We can almost walk across the highway +without fear. There is still the press, the fevered demands of summer +in the air, but something else is going to have its way. + +A changing light, a shifting wind, calls me out to meet more of this +earth than I know. Habit stifles me. My round needs to be recharged. +So I take a walk, like the oven bird, though not to gather any more +food than my senses and my spirit need. There is a lobe of land a mile +away, through the oaks, over the shore road, and across to sea level, +called the Crow Pasture. It is bordered by a tidal inlet and marsh on +one side and the sands of Cape Cod Bay on the other. It is covered with +low, wind-topped growth, blueberry bushes, beach plums, stands of pitch +pine, and stunted oak; and it is flushed with moving light and shadow, +hovered over and hunted by great clouds. The Crow Pasture is without +houses so far, and it is a bare recipient of high events, the range of +storms, the distances that come in and declare themselves by wind or +flight, the summer vaunting of the sun, the cold appeal of the moon. +Narrow, rutted dirt roads lead into it and take you on. + +This land, once used for pasturing cows, now domesticated only by +sparrows, robins, and chickadees, has final summer abundance in it. +Locusts bound from dry land grasses with rattling wings. Green head +flies buzz in savage haste. A yellow and black goldfinch flies over, +bouncing along. + +There are ebony-beaded blackberries on the ground, and a few dark +berries left on high bush blueberries. A stiff wind from the south +shakes up the thickets and the wild indigo, a compact, light bouquet of +a plant with cloverlike leaves and yellow pea flowers. Pointed cedars +stir and writhe. The air rushes through the bayberries with their +glossy leaves, and it sweeps down across the marshland ahead through +purple and yellow grasses that plume and sway, off to the white sands +beyond. + +Open land, wild air, lead ahead until salt water appears, the blue +barrens that curve beyond sight. Stiff, stunted bushes are backed up +at the edge of the marsh, hideaways for sparrows, then marsh rosemary, +or sea lavender, shows in occasional clumps through the eddying stalks +of grass. One area is thick with mosquitoes, sounding a low melody of +harassment. In the bed of a ditch, dotted with holes made by fiddler +crabs, are the tracks of a skunk. All that lives here permanently, not +foraging like a skunk, or migratory like most of the birds, has to +stand strong light, harsh winds, and salt spray, that dry, abrase, and +burn. + +The marsh merges with the sand, back of low dunes covered with stiff, +sharp-tipped beach grass and seaside goldenrod, thick stalked, with +broad soft leaves, a succulent, related to cacti, made to hold and +retain moisture. The beach shelves down from the dunes and meets the +exposed tidal ground, ledges of dark peat which is pitted like volcanic +rock, and very slippery to walk on. Beyond it at low tide the sand +flats ease out, stretch and flow, with aisles and purple fingers of +water rippling, writhing, and probing across them. + +Further along the shore a group of gray and white herring gulls stand +into the wind. Hiding in a clump of peat-rooted grasses a few hundred +feet from them is a gull in its first year. One of its wings is broken, +with the primary feathers dragging on the ground. The bird stalks +slowly along, tripping a little, isolated, a picture of shame and loss. +When I approach, it moves reluctantly toward the other gulls, then +stands into the wind slightly behind and to the side of them. Suddenly +the flock takes to the air, and the young gull stays down, crippled, +unable to forage for its food, and ultimately doomed. There are various +kinds of mutual assistance in nature. Some species, like Canada geese, +may help, or try to help a fallen mate; but there are no hospitals. I +am told that a sick bee rolls out of a hive if it can, or is pushed +out by the others. Animals must be deeply aware of death, and they die +alone, perhaps with an instinctive understanding that they have to pay +the price of a health which nature ultimately requires. + +The landscape slopes on and out from life to life, swept by the air, +an earth, sand, water, run of interchanging light. Clouds of white +terns are hovering and diving over the waters of the bay. Suddenly a +dark-plumaged marsh hawk flies into the midst of them. They harry it in +the blue, heat-clouded sky. The hawk circles, dodges, flaps on, while +they dive on it continually. It twists and rises higher and higher +trying to shake them off, until it plummets down and flies low over the +surface of the water, making a great round turn back to the shore. + +The crippled gull stands and waits with hurt patience. The hawk flies +back to the marsh behind the beach and begins to beat slowly over it, +covering the ground methodically, hunting the unwary shrew, mouse, or +sparrow. The terns dive for fish. The tide waters begin to slip in over +the sand. Measure for measure. Necessity keeps its component parts in +order, as the light changes, and the south wind keeps blowing. + + * * * * * + +Down the shore to the east is an inlet called Paine’s Creek, which +receives the inland migration of alewives in the spring, and takes out +their young, hatched in early spring and summer, as they swim to salt +water. The alewife fry, two or three inches long, attract gulls and +terns. During the month there has been a migratory colony of terns in +the vicinity, principally common terns, both adult and immature. + +In the general Cape Cod area there are two principal nesting places +every year, at Tern Island, Chatham, and in Plymouth. During the +season--the birds arrive about the end of April--both terneries have +populations which number in the thousands. There are in addition a few +small islands off the Cape and a few comparatively isolated areas where +smaller groups nest successfully, although terns are sociable birds, +and breed best in large numbers. In August, beginning with the arctic +tern, which, I am told, is the earliest to migrate, the birds begin to +leave their nesting sites in groups or small companies on their way +south. They spend the winter anywhere from Florida to the edge of the +Antarctic ice. + +So the Paine’s Creek area, with its sand eels and alewife fry, +represents a way station, a stopping-off place, one leg of a migratory +journey ... the first for birds hatched during the late spring or early +summer. Terns reach flying age in a month, but their parents go on +feeding them for some time. They are slow to mature and do not breed +until they are about three years old. + +The young are not much smaller than their parents, and without a close +watch it might be hard to tell the difference at first; but their +heads are gray, as compared with the jet-black napes and crowns on the +adults. They still spend most of the time waiting to be fed. Some +make inexperienced, practice flights over the water, plunging in and +out in an almost kittenish, hit-or-miss way, while their parents dive +like arrows, pinpointing the surface with little flashes of spray, from +which they rise up with silver quarries in their sharp bills. But as +many more of the young terns stand along the beach or on shoals at the +mouth of the inlet, crying, begging to be fed. + +Terns are intensely active and brilliant in performance. They are +comparatively small birds, but they are capable of migrating over +thousands of miles of ocean waters, and their long, angled wings beat +deep, low, and strong. They are all black and white sharpness, flashing +as bright as the gold circlets of water around sharp grasses at the +mouth of the inlet. They swing. They dart. They winnow the air. Their +lovely white shuttlecock tails spread out and settle as they turn +against the wind, crying: “Kierr! Kierr!” + +Two juveniles wait on a shoal, constantly calling in a high-pitched +tremolo, intensified when a parent bird flies over them. The trim +expert adult flies past, then swings back down the shore and circles +back, finally coming in to land between them. It has no food in its +bill, but stands there for a minute or so, and then begins to move away +from them, as they crouch and strut after it in an almost elderly way, +crying their protests. It signals departure with a slight lift of its +wings and in a few seconds flies up, the thwarted young ones taking off +behind it. + +In this behavior I see the play of learning, the many repetitions that +precede a balanced natural art. Other adults swing in with sand eels or +fish in their bills and hover, or circle back, avoiding rivals, then +drop down next to a twittering, beak-gaping child, giving it the whole +fish, or holding on to it and flying away, which has the effect of +teasing the young one to follow after. In this way the fledgling terns, +some still crouching down in a submissive manner as they did in their +nests, learn to fly up, to chase, dive, and dodge, to breast the air, +and beat their wings for all the long voyages their lives may hold. + +In a few weeks most of them will suddenly flock away and migrate. In +the meantime they practice the instinctive measures of growth, training +in the insistent, excitable ways of a tern, for air and open waters +over half the earth. + + + + + _September_ + + + _Youth on the Move_ + +The tourists and the summer residents begin to leave the Cape. This is +a visible exodus, with many more cars going out than coming in. The +people in charge of commerce count our summer gains and our losses. +Those of us who are year-round residents can admit it in public, now +that the representatives of the humming, spreading urban world have +departed. Here now is a half-populated place, temporarily, perhaps +shamefully, consigned to a dull future. And yet, according to the +practice I have begun to learn by years of residence, I can now look +around, with room to spare. What fills this emptiness? What will I see +when I take off my dark glasses? + +I notice, by the way, that some of us are now predicting the local +future with more assurance. I hear a real Cape Codder (meaning someone +born here, preferably before 1900) pronouncing that there will be a +frost around the sixteenth, and that “We’ll have a blow pretty soon.” + +The night heaves with heat. A half-clouded, half-misted sky shows +occasional stars. Then an onshore wind begins to blow and the land +stirs and frets in the darkness. I feel that new revolutions are in +order, earth-honored, momentous changes. + +In the morning the weather vane stands to the north. The sea is kicked +up, the trees are swaying, and the temperature has dropped into the +fifties. A new wind is getting in its licks, rolling and lunging +against us. The air above the sea meets the great air masses from the +land. Warm and cold, water and air, west and south, north and east, +join in a game of strength. The whole day is a trial for the future, +with the running clouds as its pawns. A child asks her father: “Can the +day blow away?” + +When the wind dies down and the clouds clear off, the air has changed +from a hazy warmth to clarity. The sea turns dark blue, groined with +white caps. The land seems strict and clean, lifted into pure new skies +and a new silence, although at night the musical pulsing of the snowy +tree crickets is still as shrill and loud as spring peepers. + +This is a marginal season like the spring. It is full of new +appearances, as well as late fruitions. The goldenrod, strong flower +of the sun, still plumes its store of light, and represents me well in +my country, in spite of congressional inclination to award some puffy, +manufactured rose with the title of national flower. + +Asters, lilac and white, grow abundantly in the sandy soil. Their +little pin wheel flowers are as crisp and clean as the new dresses of +the girls when they go off for the first day of school. The novelty, +after the closed-in summer tempo, is an outwardness. There are many +immature birds that appear suddenly in various untried places, and not +necessarily because of the demands of a set migration. Because of these +fledglings the various bird populations have so increased that they are +pushed into looking for food beyond their nesting areas. + +Immature hermit thrushes appear as if at random, and many robins +and towhees. The towhee, once called red-eyed, a name that seems to +have been changed to rufous-sided, is a handsome black, white, and +terra-cotta bird which likes scrubby areas, thickets, and open woods. +So we see it frequently. It has a black and white tail with which it +puts on a spectacular performance, flicking and flashing its feathers +like a gambler with a deck of cards; and it floats over the brush and +across the ground with its tail spread wide behind it. + +Now the young towhees call “Twee! Twee!” not quite at adult strength +and clarity, but they are finding themselves. They are on the move. + +A covey of young quail suddenly starts across the road, coming out of +a field still loud with insects. Heads and necks up, they run almost +trippingly forward with sweet, piping alarm. + +A young red-tailed hawk is brought into school by a boy whose father +found it trapped in his chicken yard and killed it ignominiously +with a baseball bat. Red tails are big beauties with a thick supply +of feathers. Their backs are brown, their white bellies flecked with +brown. The usual place to find them is high up, wheeling around the sky +on a watch for rodents; and occasionally they fly out of pitch pine +woods where they roost. The dead one has lost its piercing cry and the +electric glare in its eyes, but its talons still look formidable. They +are black, and as sharp-tipped, as wildly curved, as hooks of steel, +joined in power and flexibility. + +Bright days warm the surface of the inland ponds that have their outlet +in the waters of our local brook and estuary leading through marshes to +Cape Cod Bay. The sun’s radiance hurries up the alewife fry in their +ancient impulse to go down to salt water, from which they will return +in three or four years’ time to spawn like their elders, usually in the +same fresh-water system where they were hatched. These little silver +fish, with an unfathomed stare in their big eyes, run out on an ebb +tide from Paine’s Creek. They attract gulls and terns, which hover in +crowds against the west wind. + +The plumage of the young terns still in the area now shows a more +definite contrast between black and white. They have become more adept +at flight. Many are still being fed ... almost continuously during +those hours of shallow water when fish are easier to catch, so that the +passivity of those still waiting on the sands looks like a consequence +of being overstuffed. I get the impression that less food is being +proffered by the parent birds, but they have certainly not relinquished +their responsibility. They bring in small fish and their large children +gulp them down and wait for more. Other young birds are now flying +readily--chasing after their parents, beseeching attention, but more +often trying to fish for themselves. Little by little, by rewards and +refusal, failure and success, they are progressing toward the perfected +action of mature birds. They are becoming more aggressive, fighting +for space over a crowded channel, or protecting their catch. The +adults, whose success in fishing they are beginning to approximate, +hover over the water, beaks pointing down, then dive suddenly, wings +partly folded back. They hit the water like small stones, then come up +again, flying away fast if they have a fish in their bills, chased by +other birds that cry “Karr! Karr!” with a slightly growling note. It +is not so much that the young terns are taught, in our sense of the +word, as that they become more and more a part of the communicable +rhythm of the whole race of terns. Their circling, diving, hovering, or +racing downwind are common proficiencies of motion, that fit the great +environment of air and sea. Growing up is rhythmic practice. There is +not such a gap between tutelage and its recipients as there might seem +to be among human beings. + +Terns seem involved in a ritualistic performance throughout their +lives. Much of the behavior they show in getting food as nestlings and +fledgling birds has its parallels in adulthood. There is the “fish +flight,” for example, which has its origins in the begging, receiving, +and then hunting food of a growing bird. (A fish is a master image, a +center of recognition and attachment, with all the formality of action +it entails.) + +The fish flight is a term which in its strict sense is applied to the +behavior of birds during pre-courtship. It involves emotional display +between pairs of birds, as distinct from their food-getting habits in +general. In detail it includes differences in calls, in the relative +positions of birds during flight, and in the way they carry a fish. A +fish in the bill not only represents the fulfillment of need. It may +also be an offering, a display, and perhaps the instrument for a mutual +awareness between male and female, even before sex recognition occurs. +But if the fish flight can be tied down to behavior at a particular +stage in their lives, the terns also show similar reactions before and +after it. Mated birds go on offering fish as they fly by one another, +or begging, so that feeding is used to maintain a bond between them. +And of course the fish is the basis of all the instinctive training +of the young. The process of begging and receiving, or offering for +the uses of recognition, continues on in many forms through their life +stages. They pursue a formality. Their flights show the grace in action +of a whole society. + +At half tide, when the water recedes over the sand flats, the terns +flock there, preening and bathing in the tidal pools. Occasionally one +will lift its wings up beautifully into the wind, receiving the wash +of air. Some fly back to the inlet and drink the brackish water. The +community seems to gather more and more closely together as time goes +on. They all begin to roost densely in one area. At times they take to +the air, as if alarmed. They rise and circle, crowds of white, crying +shrilly, and then fly down again. Or they spin like a larger flock of +sandpipers, a white cloud dancing with dizzy perfection over some fish +weirs in the distance. Perhaps it could be called communal practice +for the next journey. In their rhythms they are self-sustained, +self-protective, like schools of fish, but at the same time bound out, +under the laws of the wild air. One day soon I will go down to watch +again, finding that most of them have flown away. + + + _An Open Shore_ + +We stay where we are, while the young migrant birds and the men of the +city leave us. But the days sharpen and change. The nights grow longer +and cooler. The westerly winds increase. There is a brilliance in the +air, and the sea makes a clean statement to our senses. “Adjust your +vision,” the sky seems to say, “to a turn in height and depth and in a +new area of relentless winds.” + +Those migratory birds that are still with us feed actively, fly with +restless energy, and collect in flocks. In many undisturbed areas, +down by the barrier beaches and through the salt marshes, treeless, +open to the sun, you can see a great number using their special +physical advantages to feed or fly, hide or attack, in the patterns of +environment. + +The U. S. Wildlife Refuge at Monomoy is on a long spit of barrier +beach and marsh extending south from the town of Chatham ten miles +into Nantucket Sound. It is wild, unadorned with tourist cabins, and +so an undisturbed refuge and resting place for migratory birds. At +first you find warblers, gnat-catchers, orioles, vireos, and other +land birds, working silently through low oaks, pines, and stunted, +salt-sprayed shrubbery. Then the marshland sweeps ahead with open +ground, and curving inlets behind a long beach where the surf pounds +endlessly, the sands inlaid with the debris of the sea--whelks, surf +clams, or scallops. Back in the marsh where mud snails stream slowly +ahead in a long procession, the shore birds race in, or turn quickly in +a shimmering flock, or settle among the hummocks, and along sandy rims. + +Dowitchers stolidly probe the mud with their long bills. That mottled, +distinctive bird, the ruddy turnstone, pushes, or turns over, pebbles +and stones--thus proving its name--as it searches for the worms and +crustaceans underneath. Shy piping plovers, white as oyster shells, +stand by themselves behind a dune. Sanderlings hurry back and forth +with little twinkling legs. The yellowlegs fly up and over with short, +piercing cries, their wings curved like sickles. Or a solitary marbled +godwit flies by, handsomely patterned on its wings with black and +white. Least sandpipers, tiny animals with greenish legs, hurry and +flit along, feeding at the edge of the tide pools and the rim of inlets. + +The terns--common, roseate, least--fly at a point where the tide comes +in through an opening in the beach. Sharp-cut divers, they swoop low, +dipping into the water again and again. A few ring-billed gulls move +among the shore birds. They are a little like a small herring gull, but +their heads are more rounded, like pigeons. They have a lighter flight, +and a softer look than their raucous, flat-headed relatives. And over +the ridge of the beach, against up-dune horizons, is a long belt of +great black-backed gulls, large, proud, and with a look of supreme +idleness and cruelty. + +Here is “function” in all variety, each life to its place, filling a +niche, with the special form and manner by which it feeds and tries to +survive. And every bird is a bird of the sun, adapted to this treeless, +narrow shore that blazes with cutting light, the light of sand, or +rock turned to sand, of water, roaring and moaning in the sea, rushing +back through a tidal cut on the ebb, then trickling, evaporating, +and swelling in again at the flood. Each animal works an open coast, +across its burning days. The fliers with wings so sharp, energies of +light, fit the high or low wants of the wind, the curves and sweeps of +the open marsh, the glaring sands. And they hurry on stilts, or tiny +short legs. They bob up and down. They run trippingly along--all to +the rhythm of the watered, indefinite shore, looking for food that is +rhythmic in myriad ways. Here is a great tribe of searchers. + +The human race, as it climbs laughingly into motor boats and roars +down an inlet, or sits soberly baiting fish hooks in a row boat, or +basks in the sun, is no less brought in, fitted to this region--for +all our autonomous great world of threats and shelters. There is some +compelling call, that springs its lives ahead, and will not be talked +away. Even the large, extraneous footmarks of seventy male and female +“birders”--a very special tribe--are evidence of an omnivorousness, a +searching, communicating, flocking together, from which no animals are +entirely exempt. + + + _Chipmunks_ + +As some of the inhabitants of sea and shore move on to the south, +inland life adjusts itself to local climate. The leaves on the trees +are still green, but the bracken, or dry land fern, has turned +brown, one of the early signs of autumn. My surroundings are full of +statements of this kind, an end result of preparation. I notice one of +them. I stop--pleased to be told--and then I wonder what was silently +going on in August to have placed us with such definition in September. +Plants and animals move into a new light, a new scene, when I am +merely groping with their names. Perhaps because I have read too many +newspapers, I am limited to what we call events. I see some outward +evidence, and am obliged to go backward in order to reconstruct what +might have been, when the real show is already over. + +So all September’s reassociations and revolutions may just end up +for me as a clump of locust leaves tugged loose by the wind, or the +sudden opening in a milkweed pod, or a new chill in the air. One +day I notice that a milkweed pod--on the same plant where I saw the +butterflies--erect like a lamp on its bent stem, has developed a +dimpled line down the middle. The next day it has cracked apart, and +there in the sheath are the compact seeds, overlapping like fish +scales, making a kind of cone with a tail of soft silk made up of +myriads of threads. They are moist at first, in their womb, then +they dry out and each seed parachutes away, the silky rays darting, +swirling, racing high, subject to every turn and twist of air. There +will be new populations, out of old circumstances. What happened +to the milkweed before this culmination? How many hairstreak and +monarch butterflies paid it a visit? How did it change with change in +temperature and moisture and length of days? Where did it come from +originally? Next year, if I have not been sent ahead myself, I will +stand watch over the plant so as not to miss what might be the greatest +show on earth. + +[Illustration] + +We depend on all too occasional visits to understand other modes and +rhythms of existence with any depth, although there are times when a +chance sight goes deep enough to last. This season of the year the +chipmunks are very active, foraging for grains and nuts to store in +their hibernation chambers underground. Cats, of which there are far +too many loose on the Cape, kill so many chipmunks that it is sometimes +hard to see how the population keeps up. (For one thing, these little +“ground squirrels” only seem to have one brood a year.) Cats bring +them home almost daily, teased into a terrible dance, spinning around +like weary boxers on a revolving stage. A chipmunk’s alert curiosity, +or habit of freezing into attention, may well be its most vulnerable +point. Cats will get them when they are out in the open filling their +cheeks with food. They will also come out of the shelter of a hole, or +stone wall, to investigate the source of some unusual noise or light +tapping, or a whistle, or just stay fixed when a man approaches, in a +kind of actively questioning mood. + +I hear a scattered dashing in the leaves, and there it is--a striped, +bright-looking little animal, tail twitching, arrested in motion, +quivering and throbbing, its throat pulsing at a furious rate. We watch +each other for three or four minutes. I too have my share of curiosity. +Gradually its quick pulsing dies down. It turns its head slightly away, +with those moist, black, intent little eyes. With a quick flip it is +around a tree, then drops down to run along the leaves again and jump +behind a boulder. + +It was in no mortal danger that time, but our two lives were brought +together into relationship by another danger--the dark universe of +chance. I felt it as almost a kind of love between strangers, in which +my mental being was in no way divorced from what might lie behind a +chipmunk’s eye. + +I remember another chipmunk, in Vermont this time, whose chosen ground +was a hillside pasture. I came on the animal when it was carrying +part of an apple up a slope toward its hole, located in the side of +a ridge some twenty feet above an old apple tree. When it saw me it +dropped the apple, which promptly rolled downhill. Then it watched me +with that silent waiting on chance, that throbbing look of expectation +which they have, one paw twitching slightly and clutched to its chest. +I was quiet, and at a respectable distance, so the chipmunk picked up +its food again and hurried back to the hole; but the apple was too big +to go in, and it rolled back downhill. This happened four times. The +apple rolled down. The chipmunk hauled it back up, turned it around, +put it up against the hole, a little like a man facing the problem of +moving a large bed through a narrow door. Finally it nibbled bits off +the edge, slipped sideways into the hole, and pulled the apple in after +it. I stole up as quietly as I could and saw that it was eating away +successfully with its food overhead. A problem had been solved, and +with a fair amount of intelligence. + +The illumination we find in nature does not necessarily come from +comparing degrees of intelligence, in which man always finds himself +the winner. The light goes deeper. Our analytical ways, our methods of +order, imitate an order which is indefinitely resourceful. Sometimes +it shows itself past explanation. It is like this September evening +after rain. For a short time, ten minutes perhaps, not long before +dark, the earth is colored with magic, shadowless light. The grass is +intensely green. The sky turns gray and pink. Distant fields are red +and astonishingly bright. All colors are sure and strong, joining in +pure gradations. The evening is full of mystic peace. A kitten watches +the light, transfixed in the doorway (together, for all I know, with +some chipmunk by the stone wall outside), arrested by what I in my own +silence can only think of as an unmatchable glory, never to return in +quite the same measure. + + + + + _October_ + + + _Where Is Home?_ + +The ordered days wheel on and fall into patterns consistently new. +On further acquaintance, the place I live in seems to extend its +boundaries and add to its store of lives. I struggle to understand. +The more I add to my list of things as time goes on, the less my crude +interpretations fit the circumstances. I started here with a tract +of land. I built a house. I have a family. I am not yet sure of my +location. The kingfisher says one thing, and the frog another. The +snake travels a few thousand feet of home area, and the tern thousands +of miles. They are both on Cape Cod. Then one leaves another. All +action blows hot and cold with endless variations. A little knowledge +makes my center rock with uncertainty. + +I am not even a native in the strict sense, and cannot be said to +know my way around by feel, as a man might who was born here. I had +a talk the other day with a time-honored Cape Codder on the subject +of how fish or birds found their way. He was not able to give me any +illumination on the scientific aspects of the subject, but when it came +to human beings, he did give me some tips on how to avoid getting lost. +I had confessed that I once set off in a rowboat and was lost in an +offshore fog for the better part of a morning, rowing steadily in the +wrong direction. + +The next time that happened to me, he suggested, I should drop anchor +and wait for the fog to lift. In that dense shroud it is also possible, +if you happen to be wading in shallow water, to lose sight of your boat +when it is only a few yards away. Under such circumstances he once used +his fishing line to help him get back to the boat by using the lead +sinker as the center of a compass, playing out the line and circling +until he reached it. + +The sea can be a trackless wilderness only a few yards offshore. +Natives have been lost in it as well as newcomers. Still, there is no +substitute for acquaintance, for knowing the sea’s look and its ways. +This man claimed he could feel his way in the fog. In other words, +taking in all factors, familiar or deducible, such as the way the tide +is running, whether it is ebbing or rising, how the wind goes, and +from what quarter, or even guessing direction by the ridges on a sand +bar, he could take the right course, without, as he put it “letting my +judgment interfere.” + +It took me a while just to learn the local compass directions, but +now that I have my north, south, east, and west inside me, I am not +sure, even walking through the trees, that I will not bump into my old +ignorance. It takes time to find your way. A man new to the countryside +might well be envious of some of the older inhabitants that know where +they are without trying--a turtle, for example. A box turtle’s slow +motion over the year seems like a true measure of ancientness. While +the birds, the fish, the men depart, this dry land reptile seems to +feel responsible for holding back, for the weight of the earth itself. +In the springtime I have seen a slow pair approaching each other in +a mood of affinity, while the rest of the procreative world danced +overhead, and I have seen a female laying her eggs in a sand bank, +covering them over with a last shove of her hind legs, then moving +away, a little more quickly than usual, it seemed to me, as if to +return to the more agreeable task of waiting things out. When fall +comes and their cold blood slows, they grow torpid and finally dig out +of sight into the ground. + +On one of these warm days in early October I hear a slow dragging in +the leaves, and come upon a box turtle eating a mushroom. They have +beautifully patterned shells, ocher or yellow, sometimes orange, and +dusty black, almost batik in design, with many variations. I stand +about eight feet away, while it holds its head and neck straight up, +watching me. I guess it to be a male, by the bright red little eyes. +The eyes of a female are a darker reddish brown. + +[Illustration] + +His wrinkled red neck pulses a little. His yellow beak and curved mouth +line are tight shut under his flat-topped head, with bits of mushroom +sticking out on either side. Very comical, he looks; but he stares down +any inclination in me to laugh out loud. He watches me without moving +for a full fifteen minutes before I get tired of the experiment and go +away. Nothing, he seems to realize, can outlast a box turtle. This old +male, with his wrinkled red jowls, and his soft, puddled-looking feet, +must represent some antediluvian complacency, or, for all I know, a +reasonable pride. + +In captivity box turtles have exceeded forty years before they died, +and some grow to be much older than that, if they avoid being crushed +on the highways or killed by forest fires, since they are otherwise +invulnerable to most predators, excepting man. This year a box turtle +was found locally by a man whose deceased relative had carved his +initials on its shell in 1889, making the turtle seventy-one years old. +How old the turtle was when so tagged is not known. + +They are wanderers--more so, for example, than the water turtles, and +with a certain assurance. Within their chosen environment, of open +field, shrubby slope, or marsh periphery, they cover a great deal of +ground. They seem to carry a staying power with them, and an ancient +decorum. They are like old natives true to ancestral places. There is +something enviable about this fittingness to home. + +Still, I have enough modern restlessness or rootlessness in me to +think that a home or piece of land probably has fewer boundaries than +ever before. We are going to have to know our location “way out,” as +some of the old Cape Codders used to say. I have an equal envy of the +terns that are flying toward the Caribbean or the Antarctic. They are +birds of the world, in which they know their direction by markers +that are light-years away, or so some scientists believe after much +investigation. The latest theory is that migrating birds find their +way by the sun’s changing position during daylight hours and by some +of the constellations at night. They have a built-in mastery of what +it took many thousands of years for man to learn, with his surpassing +intellect. They are readers of the stars. Their home is in the wide +blind sky. + + + _The Field of Learning_ + +We are committed far from home, but for a field of learning, the start +and the finish is still here, still in place, just as that unique +season of October, presaging a death in the glory of its color and +clouds, brings the first frost, as if to say: “Regard necessity, in all +its aspects. Look no further.” + +It never comes without warning. One night a thrashing, thicket-tearing +wind arrives with much greater cold. Two nights later another wind +blasts all warmth away, and when it dies down the frost settles in, +leaving a crisp whiteness on the grass at dawn, and clouds of white +vapor over the pond waters. The garden beans go limp and the wild +indigo turns black. + +In that wind the low trees are like a sea, pluming and foaming. They +are tossed and rocked, they pitch and writhe, while the stars in +ordered majesty stream overhead. When the temperature starts to go +down there is not a sound from the insect musicians any more, not one +pizzicato, nor audible dry pulsing in the trees. You might think all +breeding was over, though generation is latent everywhere. + +Then it grows warm again. The insects sound in the grass and in the +trees, if to a diminished extent. Crows gather in the early morning, +and their various calls, synchronized in the open air, over the +treetops, sound highly melodious. I hear a robin caroling, but very +quietly, almost out of a playfulness, a musing. In spite of inexorable +change, there are false dawns, days, or hours of deceptive warmth that +set the long-horned grasshoppers to their buzzing and clicking and the +flickers to shouting with renewed energy. All through the woods tiny +tree frogs pipe at intervals from the cover of damp leaves. The pools +in the fishway at the Brewster Herring Run are loaded with warm October +sunlight and three-to four-inch alewives going down to salt water. A +kingfisher planes up from branches above the stream with a rattling cry. + +The pattern is one of reduction, depopulation, cutting down to size, +but like all other shifts in a season, this one is manifested as +another angle of light, a different feel to the air, a new set of +circumstances, as much as a stop to all activity. When the fall winds +swish and swoop along the shore, and I walk the tidal flats, a wide +space played upon by light--gold, brown, and blue reflections running +through pools and across long ribs of sand--I am regenerated by all the +choices that are still ahead of me. Nothing is fixed or finished. It +seems to me that everything I encounter is driven by indirection, like +the waves and rivulets, sun tangled, that are crossing each other and +separating over sand bars during an oncoming tide. Here is the ordered +complexity which ensures that our findings, or rather, our search, will +never have an end. + +The finding-out process begins in childhood. That is why teaching is +so great a profession. We intellectual animals have a long period in +which to learn our wings. The teacher’s role is to bring us toward our +highest capacity, and the tortures of that are immeasurable, on both +sides. The field of learning is as wide as the sand flats, and the +results as hard to catch as the waves; but a teacher has help from his +pupils in ways over which they themselves have little control. Children +have new fingers and new eyes and have to be coaxed into using them, +but the touch and sight they bring cannot be taught in the schools. + +I have found out lately, after some attempts at teaching natural +history, that nature springs in a child and a child in nature. You +learn that you are teaching both. + +Why is one so proud of ignorance, and another of hiding what he knows? +Some make a violent effort to be noticed; others, to retreat from view. +You have an ambivalent and groping world to deal with, as hard to tape +or tie as some of the phenomena you lead it to. But life is present +tense to them, neither past nor future. They seem to pick up its +manifestations not with adult skill but on the fly, like a boy casually +catching a ball after missing ten, and then being surprised at himself. +How did it happen? Memories, complexities, prejudices, risks taken on +behalf of the future are largely unknown to them. It is enough to be +new. There is not even any choice, since all choices are open, being +new. Children are the unpredicting and the unpredictable. The one thing +in which they never fail is growth, like the natural environment which +never fails in its variations on the theme of fertility. + +One mild afternoon two of us take out a group of boys on a field trip +along the shore, a beginners collecting expedition. The class runs +ahead. They find a dead loon on the beach, with rove beetles, lovers of +carrion, roaming through its body. These beetles have black and white +stripes, suggesting a skunk to one boy, who is still young enough to +admit all affinities. + +They run on, with erratic energy. They lend a puzzled ear to our +explanations of how life forms are related to the places in which +we find them. They are not quite certain of our terms. What is +“environment?” What, for that matter, is “life?” + +Classifications come hard to them at first. Certain types of +recognition take a long time to learn. When I think that at the age of +thirty I didn’t know the difference between one gull and another, not +to speak of their different calls, I am hardly surprised. + +“What’s this?”: a dune-dwelling locust, an ichneumon fly; a slipper +shell, a shred of kelp, a spider, a scallop shell ... all parts of a +game, novelties. But when will we know how to fit them all together? +An impatient teacher might think from these boys, with their degrees +of inattention, that the game will never get under way, that the +preparation will never end. Yet their own lesson is that readiness is +all, and the outcome immaterial. + +I am only half acquainted with them, although some of their native +traits stand out plain to see. In one there is a shade of melancholy +transplanted from his father, in another courtesy and gaiety. One is +rough and full of the fever of unregulated competition. Another is +quiet and slow, or quick and sensitive. Together they share a mystery. +They are in active flight like young birds, and at this point, this +moment of being, allowed its own growth without real harm or hindrance, +they give an offering. It is the act of their unknown selves. + +They catch some more insects with their nets. They find the bright +yellow feathers of a flicker which had been caught and eaten by fox or +owl in the beach grass. They identify the remains of a young herring +gull washed onto the upper beach. The tide has ebbed and the sands +stretch off with glittering lanes and rivulets--gulls stalking in the +distance, or resting in white flotillas on the water--and blue salt +water curves beyond, over the earth’s perimeter. The October shadows +begin to stretch farther down the sands. Light, smoky clouds drift +over and a strange little shower of rain comes down, running along +the beach, disturbing no one. Then the sun comes clear again, moving +westward. Everything we collect, all that we can say about it, is +only a start, a suggestion, although each sample leads to all others. +We have left a great deal behind. If the north wind roars in again +tomorrow, sweeping all warmth away, killing more of life’s visible +evidence, or making it cower in the earth, and causing colds and +crabbedness in human society, we will still be setting out. + + + _Colors of the Season_ + +There is yellow and peach pink on the leaves of the red maples, and +some of the oaks begin to show signs of changing, but the most colorful +plants are the mushrooms. The wet weather has been providential for +them, and they have come up in some areas where I cannot remember +having seen them before. They thrust mysteriously but stubbornly +through the grass in a wide semicircle of white moons. They parade up +the side of trees, and across the wood floor their cups or parasols +stand comfortably grounded in dead leaves or decaying wood. (We see +only the flower of the mushroom protruding above the ground, while +underneath lies the complex mat of fine fibers from which they blossom, +the mycelium.) + +For such pulpy, soft, almost immaterial-looking plants, mushrooms show +a strange power to lift, which is caused, in reality, by hydraulic +pressure within them, amounting to as much as six or eight pounds +per square inch. They come up through an inch or two of concrete, or +through the asphalt surface of a road. They move the heavy bark of old +logs aside. One of them puts up a scaly dome under the edge of a pump +house eave that almost touches the ground, as if it intended to lift +the roof off. + +When we think of fungi, we have a justifiable association with rot +and decay, mildew and mold. They lack chlorophyll, that famous green +substance by which other plants are able to absorb the energy of the +sunlight and through it convert carbon dioxide and water into food. +The mushrooms, like other fungi, get their food directly from organic +matter, rich soil, rotting wood, or leaf mold. They reproduce by +billions of tiny spores, each of which, or rather, the comparatively +few that catch, are started in such a matrix. In a sense they are +procreative flowers of the darkness, annuals which the earth puts forth +in its own teeming right, regardless of the gay slaves of the sunlight. +But they are colorful. They wear the earth’s sulfurs, umbers, and +ochers, its iron rusts, light greens, grays, and whites, as well as +some startling rose-reds and vermilions. + +I find a small one in the wet leaves which is a lavender-blue, named, +according to my reference book, the violet cortinarius, and good to +eat--surprisingly enough. Color is no criterion of what is poisonous. +The deadly amanita does not have the flickering blue-green color of +something low and ominous, nor is it a dangerous red, a signal for all +but the most reckless to keep off. Some of the reddest mushrooms, in +point of fact, are the best to eat. But the deadly amanita is almost +tempting in appearance. It is white and succulent-looking, and to eat +enough of it means death. + +A strange thing, the mushroom, of short annual appearances (though the +roots, or mycelium, are perennial), of quick growth and quick decay. +Some of them are already turned into rotten dark brown, nearly liquid +heaps. Others will gradually dry up and disappear, but now, on this +tag end of a moist season, they are the local bounty. They have curled +edges like cabbage or dead oak leaves. They take the form of single +stems and fronds like seaweed. They are fringed, scalloped, round or +flat, thin or fat. They bunch together at the base of an old stump, or +they climb the side of a tree in shelves. Their heads take the form of +lima beans, or floppy rabbit ears, fans, umbrellas, trumpets, shaggy +hats, or cottage roofs. They are scaly, rough, smooth, or silky. They +have thin stems and dainty heads like flowers; or both head and stem +look like one great overgrown protuberance. Here and there, coming +through the leaf litter, are yellow bunches of coral mushrooms, so +called because they have the look of branched coral; and in the deep +shade they seem almost luminous. In fact, whether or not any mushrooms +do have a luminosity, like some fungi, they have a glimmer of decay +about them in our imagination. They are of the earth unearthly, in +spite of the fact that many of them provide substantial beds for insect +larvae, that they are good, if sometimes treacherous food, and that +they can raise the top off a road. + +This year has also been rich in Indian pipes. This is that unreal, +pure-white plant, which, in more mythical times, has been called the +corpse plant, or ghost flower. It blooms by itself, though out of the +moist woodland humus like the mushrooms, lacking chlorophyll as they +do. There is some dispute apparently, consistent with the Indian pipe’s +ghostly nature, about what it really is. Some books refer to it as a +“saprophyte,” which means a plant that absorbs its nutrition from dead +or decaying organic matter, but in others it is called a “parasite.” A +parasite gets its nourishment from a living host. The Indian pipe has a +very small mat of rootlets where the thick stems join together at the +base of the plant. If you dig it out of the ground it looks as if it +were resting on bare knuckles. These roots, according to the botanists, +have an outer layer of funguslike tissue, which means that the fungus +rather than the roots has actual contact with the soil. So it sounds +as though the Indian pipe, being dependent for its food on the fungus +and not the soil or humus, were a parasite. Another alternative, if +the fungus gets any nourishment from the plant, is that they live in a +state of mutual association, or symbiosis. Thus science, still trying +for exactitude, and the Indian pipe, still unaccountable. It seems to +be on the verge of several worlds rather than an integral part of one, +a plant you might meet in a dream. + +Other old and once popular names for it are: Dutchman’s-pipe; fairy +smoke; convulsion weed; eyebright; bird’s nest; and American ice +plant. It was called ice plant, according to Alice O. Albertson in her +_Nantucket Wild Flowers_ (1921), because “it resembles frozen jelly +and is juicy and tender and dissolves in the hands like ice.” One +contemporary authority calls it “clammy,” which is accurate enough, +and keeps it in the realm of ghosts and chills, but I think it was an +exaggeration to say that it dissolves in the hands. I find it solid +enough, not fragile or perishable to the touch. Its stems have a +fibrous, tough core, which is sometimes hard to tear. It also has a +pungent, woody smell, though this probably comes from the soil it grows +in. + +All the same, it is an elusive, beautiful flower, a miraculous +specialty. Coral pink shines almost translucently through the stems, +which are covered with tiny white bracts, or scales, taking the place +of leaves--scales of a tiny albino fish perhaps--and the bell-like +flowers hang their stiff white heads straight down, with pink seed pods +standing up between them, round, decoratively grooved little crowns. +When the plant dies, it stands for months as a thin, brownish black +string, having turned from beautiful ghost to lifeless reality. + +Over the mushrooms and Indian pipes, in subtle relationship to them, +the leaves are losing their green chlorophyll and revealing the other, +more stable pigments that last out long enough to make the familiar +glory of the autumn. There is not so much a general “dying” in the +fall, as an adjustment. Insect eggs are in the bark or ground, the +mushroom spores are being carried through the air, the grasses are +heavy with seed, acorns drop to the ground. One day last October I was +hit with a shower of acorns from the white oaks. This year, since oaks +fruit heavily on different years, I notice more acorns from the black +oaks. How fast these acorns get to work! A little curling, probing, +adventurous sprout comes from the nut, and in a short time has grown +several inches. A few manage to take hold before the ground is frozen. +A multitude of others provide food for squirrels, chipmunks, or blue +jays. The measure of these arrangements is complex and elaborate. +Between the leaf of a tree and a mushroom, worlds apart in function, +there are connections of rainfall, temperature, or sunlight, in a +context continually new, and though the ground colors fade, sunsets, +seas, and inland waters will take over their active play. + +That great bonfire of a maple tree--one special to my boyhood--that +I used to marvel at in the New Hampshire fall, is here replaced by +second-or third-growth oaks. I now live in a stunted land; but as it is +the sea which surrounds it, so, in its long low stretches, its glacial +hollows and running hills, it rides ahead like open billows. The early +splashes of color come from the red of the sumac and the purple-reds of +the huckleberries and blueberries. Then color begins to spread through +the oaks, that war with yellow-green pitch pines for living space. +Yellow or red streaks show in the leaves of the white oak, orange in +the waxy leaves of the post oak, brilliant red in the scarlet oak. Then +deep reds, maroons, cowhide yellows and browns pervade them, and our +woodland surroundings seem full of a beautiful propriety, a beauty in +necessity. + +Occasional copses of beech trees are shining with golden bronze; and +tupelo, or black gum, trees, with scraggy, undulant branches, have +little leaves that are a blazing, livid red. Over bare hillsides the +“hog cranberry,” or bearberry, a perennial ground cover with shiny +leaves, is hung with cherry-red fruit. The cultivated cranberry bogs +show broad stretches of purple-red, shaped, depending on the area, in +squares, circles, or oblongs, all, if well cared for, neatly ditched. +The tidal inlets and marshes run with flaxen and gold, spotted at their +edges with light festival red from the berries of black alder, a form +of holly. + +These flaming revelations signal the trees’ reaction to the decrease +in light’s intensity, or the colder temperature of the soil. The leaf +decomposes. The tree withdraws and makes ready for a leaner season; +but it is too big a display for mere “adjustment.” You will not find +the category of color in a historical dictionary or the encyclopedia +of social sciences, but in this temperate zone at least, it is now an +integral part of the history of change, and of natural society. + + * * * * * + +There is a deep little hollow nearby called Berry’s Hole. Many years +ago it contained a cranberry bog, and it is still wet bottom land with +water around its edge, and a center choked with moisture-loving shrubs +and reeds. Frogs take advantage of it, as well as water insects and +their larvae. Wood peewees nest around it in the springtime. Now it +is radiant with its special version of the fall. In the middle of +October, sheep laurel is still green on the surrounding slopes, through +the purple huckleberry bushes. I walk down them into a raining screen +of leaves. Berry’s Hole is circled by red, also called swamp, maples, +and their red and yellow leaves, light and delicate compared to those +of the oak trees on dry slopes above them, slip down constantly through +the bright air, drift, eddy, and finally touch the ground, or fill the +brown water with loose-lying, sinking rafts of color. + +A green frog leaps into the water with a squeak. I notice a box turtle +on the bank, with its head determinedly locked in this time. Its +markings, on an almost black shell, are dashes of yellow, and a rich +reddish orange that reminds me of a Blackburnian warbler. + +Response to color is response to energy, the radiance and the +reflection of light. I close my eyes after looking across the sun and +see red, the color of warmth and desire. Around the eye of Berry’s Hole +is the red of blood and the yellow of the sun. + + + _The Last Day in October_ + +The night, after a deceptively bright and soothing day, seems suddenly +withdrawn. The wind has a hard feel to it, as if a northern authority +had come to stay. Heavy rolls of cumulus clouds hang in the sky when +morning breaks, and the Cape begins to look like my winter image of it, +dank and cold, with inert, slate-colored seas investing its shores. The +oak leaves have turned a darker, more lifeless red, or they are light +brown. I notice that the leaves of the white oaks are among the first +to die, beginning to curl up like stiff, ancient hands, with an ashy +pallor on them. The scarlet oaks are the last to lose their color. + +As a result of their definite adjustment, insisting on certain rules +of change before many of the rest of us are quite ready, the oak +woods seem to have a dark, plenipotentiary look. The trees stand in +self-saved, stiff company, although the animals that visit them are +lively enough. I watch a gray squirrel burying acorns in loose dirt +at the edge of the road. He has that continually twitching, starting +and stopping, restless being of his rodent relatives the red squirrels +and the chipmunks. He runs back and forth over the sandy earth burying +the acorns, and then, as if unsatisfied with the places he put them, +bringing them out again. + +The squirrel’s gray, fur-clad body flows with suppleness. The big gray +tail is sudden too in its motion, stretching out behind, or up, with +curled tip when the animal stops to sit. He quits his activity, and +with a long bound and dive he is up a tree. Along with its slapdash +motion, but provident method, the gray squirrel may also have a touch +of foolhardiness in its nature, though even the most practiced make +their slips. I have never seen it happen myself, but a friend tells me +that he has seen gray squirrels miss their leap occasionally in high +trees near his house and fall to their death. + +The leaf litter still fairly jumps with mice and shrews. A little blind +shrew with dark gray pelt and pink nose slips out of a bank of leaves +where I walk. It swerves with astonishing speed and squeaks angrily at +me before it dives out of sight into the leaves. This, in contrast to +other members of the mouse family, is a fighter. + +I go into a part of the oak wood which has been a little more protected +... a hollow fenced in and fringed by strands of bull briar. It is an +open space where deer have come in to paw the ground and settle down at +night. Skunks have left little holes where they clawed into the leaf +mold on their hunt for grubs. Towhees have scratched the leaves apart. +Cottontails have stopped here, hopped, nibbled, and jumped away. + +This land is mine. The deed is recorded in my name. But I cannot claim +to have put it to better use than the animals to whom it is public +property. It belongs to the deer, the skunk, the rabbit, and the +towhee, who eat, pass through, or take shelter there. With my approach, +of course, the whole question of tenure is rudely solved, except for +the countless stay-at-home organisms in the ground beneath me. The deer +turns once with a large gaze, then bounds away with its white, electric +brush of a tail flung up. “Boom!” a partridge thunders up, cuffing +leaves and twigs with its wings, and hurtles off through the trees. +A crow gives a warning call as it flies overhead. I am allowed the +land if I want it, though not much trust is involved. But why should I +expect comfort or acceptance, in this open realm of risk? Neither man +nor deer was mother to the skunk. It knew its own. Chance meetings will +do, for the love I find in them. + +On the calendar this is the last day of October, and it has some +justice to the title. The lunar months mirror the general character of +the year’s transitions. In spite of the fact that all single days are +lost in the passage of light and we are left behind, this one seems +full of an end and a turn to something else. The local life is making +its last forays, before a time of dormancy, hibernation, or struggle +to survive. A mourning cloak butterfly beats lightly by, with no other +companions to be seen. I find some mud dauber wasps, flies, and a +cicada killer, all hibernating in a pile of rotten logs. The woods +are full of the intermittent beauty of the last oak leaves, red, with +a deep tone in the gray day, and the sumacs still show their shining +raspberry color on the surrounding slopes. + +The late afternoon is cold and quiet. I regret the shorter day and the +need to leave the great air so soon. But underneath lowering clouds is +a growing gap of swirling orange toward the west. As the light recedes +around us, the sunset begins to show the power and surge of pattern +in the sky. Coils and whips of gold at first--bold, bright, far away. +Then spun gold behind dark barriers--the ribs of whales, giant minnows, +plumes tinted with salmon, the curving timbers of ships, and all things +rare and imaginary plunging through an oceanic fire. Also I see golden +October going, in fields of last excitement. But what this and many +other sunsets say is “Come on!” However you use your days and nights, +in speed or muddled preoccupations, come. It will be too late soon for +the feast that is now, whose fires are always carrying over to the +other side of the world. + + + + + _November_ + + + _The Seed in the Season_ + +The glory goes, and there comes the first sudden plucking out of dead +leaves. They scud and sail. They lift and fall to the ground, where +they sometimes scuttle unexpectedly like mice. + +November rolls into view with cool, solemn, formal consistency. When +it rains they say: “I’m glad it’s not that white stuff,” although Cape +Cod is not noted for its snow. There is no deep and heavy frost as yet, +no northeast gales driving wet flakes at our eyes. A number of Cape +Codders migrate to Florida for the winter. Daylight diminishes. As the +leaves drop off we begin to see more distinctly between the trees. I +find two spotted turtles moving very slowly through the waters of a +ditch at one side of an abandoned cranberry bog. In one open field +there are a few red-legged grasshoppers, much less active than a few +weeks before. An occasional cricket, grasshopper, or spider is spotted +and animated by the rays of the sun when it bursts through drifting +clouds. Here and there a violet aster or late goldenrod stands in bloom +between innumerable plants that are fuzzy with seed. The milkweed still +sends crowds of little silk parachutes shining on the wind. + +We are now in a genuine country state of which the urban power talks +with both scorn and ignorant nostalgia. The summer no longer pounds at +our temples. The fall color is gone. There is nothing to look at, and +very little to hear except the wind, or a plane in the distance, a car +on the highway. To a city lover it is silent and deadly dull. + +As to the nostalgia, I doubt that there is much stress any more on +the virtue implicit in country living. Since all men now dwell in all +places, they question virtue everywhere; but some still talk as though +the country were a place for that intangible peace and moral order that +they think is lacking in the world. The country, however, is in the +grip of a power that has no moral values and is greater than morality. +It is false and true. It is benign and it is terrible. It cures and it +kills. And I do not suppose that whether or not the earth is made up of +human cities can make much difference to it. I am waiting for a deeper +tone than hope. + +There is no noise or compelling distraction in a field or stand of +trees. Still, a forester suggested to me that if trees could make +themselves heard, in their internal growth and adjustments, the roar +would be deafening. The same thought has been applied to life in the +ground, with its countless microorganisms, in a state of continual +displacement and turmoil, growing and dying, consuming and being +consumed. They too might roar. We have enough at hand and under our +feet to make general tumult no surprise. + +The point about this countryside is not its isolation but its +potentiality. It is in charge of origins. What is more dramatic than +the production of seeds in plants and grasses over one small field? +The seeds are in uncountable numbers, and each one is a miniature +plant, an embryo, surrounded by food and a protective coating. It is an +embodiment of force. It eats and breathes, and now goes into a period +of dormancy like an animal, ready to germinate in the spring when +conditions are favorable. Such facts are part of elementary biology, +but they cover up the stir and momentum of the globe. + +[Illustration] + +These seeds, on grass and weeds now growing thinner, drier, more +colorless, are not only rich in generation, on their own account, but +they provide beyond themselves. The juncos, or snow birds, that come +down from the north will survive on a seed diet throughout the winter, +with the sparrows, and that sustaining food the mice, preyed upon by +fox, weasel, or hawk. The simplest “food chain” suggests the links in +many others. In fact there is no fundamental separation anywhere in +this common world of life, despite the greatly various environments +of water and land that we use to help us differentiate between the +species. Winds blow through. Tides lap over. Each plant and animal is +proof of general contact and association. + +The insignificant seed has energy and sustenance enough to perpetuate +many worlds. It makes me look at mere grass with more interest than +I did. I believe there are some fourteen hundred species of grasses +in the United States, of which I know less than a dozen. There is one +grass which grows in many areas of the Cape, through open slopes, pine +woods, sandy, run-down fields, that I have heard called beard, or +prairie grass. I have walked by it, on it, and through it for years +without knowing its name, though its nameless, light-catching beauty +often caught my attention. It turns out to be broom sedge (_Andropogon +scoparius_), a plant that reaches from here and the Middle Atlantic +States south to Texas and across the southeast to California. It is +a poor soil, poor forage grass, appropriate to this nonagricultural +region. Its stems rise from a bunch of curving, rustling leaf blades, +and are covered with tiny florets that go to seed in the fall, little +feathery tufts. As the autumn months progress it grows more colorful, +deepening to tawny pink, with a touch of purple, before it takes on its +straw-colored midwinter hue. The little silky feathery tufts shine in +the sunlight like the slightest spits and sparkles on a pool, or tiny +plumes of frost, intangibly gentle, sustaining their brightness as the +winter comes on. The stems are two to three feet tall, and with their +delicate adornments, they stand the year around, stirring, curving +forward, nodding back, with the utmost refinement. So I praise what is +for me a new discovery, though it has stood near me in its own praise +for many years--a country eloquence. + +Almost all local preparations are done. The seed is sown and made +ready. The time for persistence is coming, when those grasses we +take so much for granted will hold our earth together. When the sun +warms them, drying on slopes and through old fields, they smell sweet +underfoot, a natural, uncut hay. + + + _The Clouds_ + +The power of sending on is latent in the seed, but the weather itself +is always openly manifest, and when the leaves fall, when the summer +nests begin to show up in unexpected places, then it hits us even +harder. The northeast winds are beginning to be something to hide from. +The sky stares with a wider, colder eye. + +When it is cloudy I hear the dull drone of unseen planes far above +me, and I think of a world at large that is teeming with meetings and +negotiations, losing decisions, waiting on results. The immediate earth +seems to shift, tack, and decide according to its clouds, that slant +up the sky in fibrous strands, hang deep and low, or lift across the +sunlight. + +The sun’s rays slant lower between the open aisles of the trees, and +there is a keener, icier edge to the light. I walk out through a +hollowed, dipping and waving landscape onto gray-green lichens, and +dry, sweet-smelling grasses of an old field laced with briars, and +the pale blue sky is on top of me with intoxicating height. The vapor +trail of a jet plane cuts across the sky for miles, while slower clouds +ease and change across the November blue, allowing lazy time for the +imagination. + +But if to imagine is a dispensation from nature that allows us to +take part in her intricate creativeness, then it is no idleness. +Rationally, a cloud, whether cumulus, stratus, cirrus, nimbus, or a +combination thereof, is what it is: a collection of drops of water, +or ice particles, suspended in the air. Meteorology as a science must +be one of the most intriguing, since its subjects never sit still. I +would, if I could, make an analysis of the clouds that are typical +of a season, the changes in pace that make themselves known overhead; +though the old maritime men of Cape Cod could do a better job. They +knew what they depended on, in the way of calm or storm, and predicted +what they felt. Subjective interpretation is suspect these days, but +it implies a common familiarity for which objective analysis offers no +substitute. The sensate imagination, with its head in the clouds, finds +interconnections past their specialty and name. + +Clouds, collecting moisture from the ponds, lakes, or ocean waters, +have many of the shapes and patterns of the land, or head, if you like, +that they come from. We can find faces in them, as well as in the dregs +of a teacup; but they are the images of an invention that is more fluid +than our own. Their texture may cause them to look like scratched, +glacial rocks, or they are wooly and fibrous at the same time. They +might suggest cocoons or the nest of fall webworms. They hang in +snowy shoals or in striated banks. They ripple like the sands at low +tide. They look like whitecaps on the sea. They move as slowly and +inexorably as fields of ice, or in quick bursts ahead of the wind. They +roll in mountainous abundance, or fan out like a river’s long fingers +stretching out across a delta. + +Clouds suggest seaweed, grasses, wings. Occasionally they remind me of +ferns, and of the fernlike patterns that the frost makes on a window, +or they resemble some basic structure of a living thing. As plants +and animals are united in fundamental physical laws and in their +chemical composition, so clouds, for all their evanescence, cannot be +separated from the world of life. Clouds are announcements of progress +and decline. They show the sky’s adventures. There is more to them +than my fancy. The light, the wind, the altitude, temperature, time +of day or year commit them to a definite size, shape, and existence. +They are images of substance, in a motion which casts everything into +its weather, including that human sign on the sky, the jet’s trail, +imposing an abstract scar ten miles across. + + + _The Inconstant Land_ + +When the clouds cover the sky like gun smoke and the air feels cold +and restricting, I am reminded that the character of Cape Cod has +nothing to offer an uncertain world except uncertainty. Its trees are +not of a size to hang on to, and its dunes shift like the waves. It is +a land that men have ravaged with fire, not excluding the Indians who +preceded us, and abused without compunction. It is said there used to +be great stands of trees on the Cape, hardwoods, hemlocks and pine. The +remnants of submerged Atlantic white cedar forests have been found as +far as three miles out in Cape Cod Bay, and bog borings have revealed +the evidence of timber in some areas where trees now have only a bare +subsistence. But during the nineteenth century, judging by photographs +and local account, this peninsula was much poorer in trees than it is +now, even though our local woods cannot be given credit for much height +and dignity. + +A man from New Hampshire visited me briefly a few years ago and said: +“What in the world are you living here for? There aren’t any trees!” I +pointed out to him that we had the sea, but the place seemed poor and +flat to him, and he headed back to the mountains and tall timber as +fast as he could, though he first chose to have a lunch of seafood, on +his way out. + +When I bought the land I live on, it had a desolate appearance aside +from a long view of the water, but its high wildness appealed to me. +It was covered with dead oaks, standing everywhere like stripped +spars. They had been killed off by a severe infestation of gypsy +moths, and were, in any case, weak, cutover growth to begin with. The +local landowners cut the woods down almost completely, then waited, +twenty-five years in many cases, to cut them again. Others cut for +firewood whenever they needed it. This area is covered like a rabbit +warren with tracks made by wagons coming in to take out wood. I talked +with a man recently who used to ride on the wagon seat with his +grandfather when he was a boy. They liked to pull trees out when the +frost was in the ground. Even then the wagon would be so heavily loaded +that it sank in almost to the axles, with the horse pulling hard in +the middle. The deep ruts are still to be seen. Besides taking out the +wood for sale and for their own use, the owners would sell it “on the +stump,” letting individuals go on their land and cut. + +Since this was a country whose inhabitants often made a sparse living +out of livestock as well as fish, the land was also used for grazing. +Cattle and sheep kept the brush and ground cover down. Many sandy +hillsides were not only bare, but beginning to erode badly. + +In his _Cape Cod_, Thoreau speaks of the country between the towns of +Barnstable and Orleans on the bay side as being “bare, or with only a +little scrubby wood left on the hills.” “Generally,” he writes, “the +ploughed fields of the Cape look white and yellow, like a mixture of +salt and Indian meal. This is called soil. All an inlander’s notions of +soil and fertility will be confounded by a visit to these parts, and he +will not be able, for some time afterwards, to distinguish soil from +sand.” + +Fire has tormented the Cape, ever since the Indians, who used it to +clear areas for corn, or to increase the visibility when hunting game. +When the humus on the woodland floor is thin, and the trees not healthy +or high enough to provide protective shade, thus retaining moisture +in the ground, a severe drought may make them ripe for burning. I +have heard it said that fires used to be set deliberately in order to +improve the blueberry crop. And a neighbor tells me that he has seen +thirty or more fires set by the sparks from a train, chugging down the +Cape, as he watched from a bare hillside half a century ago. + +Oddly enough, the pitch pine owes a great deal of its present +prosperity to fire. It is one of the few trees whose roots stay alive +and which comes back after an area has been burned over. Most of its +competitors, except scrub oaks and black oaks, are killed off. It +is a tough tree, and when it grows to good height with its rugged, +wind-whisking look, a beautiful one; but it has its vulnerable points. +It is very greedy for light, being what the tree experts call an +“intolerant tree,” and it cannot stand competition. Pitch pines that +come up under the shade of oaks or even of their own kind, soon die +off. They demand their own ground. The oaks, especially the white oak, +are much more tolerant of shade, and may in time push out the pitch +pine, provided fires are held to a minimum in the future. + +The oaks are monumentally persistent. Cut them down fifty times and +they will sprout back from the roots, which merely spread out a little +further and send out more shoots. These “sprout hardwoods” have poor +quality wood. They have fungus diseases, and are subject to attack +by insect borers. The general attitude toward them is that they are +worthless. Now that they are not much in demand for firewood, the +bulldozer, rather than the ax, is their major enemy. But they deserve +some admiration for holding their own. The first year or two after +cutting, a sprout oak will grow very fast, but then it settles down +for a long future, beginning to grow at a slow, insistent rate, taking +what comes. This is a windy and salty land, where oaks may never grow +to great girth and height, but they seem eloquent about their right to +last out the next five thousand years on Cape Cod as well as we, even +though thirty feet, or in some areas five, may be the maximum they +reach. This is their chosen land. + +The late fall wind makes the brown oak leaves rustle and stir or sound +like hail, and it soughs through the pitch pines. The whole year is +full of the collaborative music of air and trees. They may be poor +trees, low and rangy, subject to great abuse, but in their growth they +make the land march between its surrounding waters. The gray oak trunks +go in ranks and tiers for mile after mile down the center of the Cape, +interspersed by individual pitch pines, or backed up and sided by pines +in independent woods that look rounded and bunched in the distance, +pocked with dark green shadows. The oak branches thrust up their +candelabras of branches and stiff twigs against the pale sky, ready for +next spring’s sunlight. The pitch pines stand with scaly, dark brown +trunks and thick needles rocking and switching around, authorities on +wind, and sandy soil, on impermanence, on taking your chances when and +where you can. + +Geologists say that this truly “narrow land,” no more than a mile wide +in some sections, seven or eight in others, may vanish under the sea +in five or six thousand years. Its border of sands is always in the +process of roaming and shifting. The Cape has no bedrock. Its rocks +are migrants, brought down from the north by moving ice. In spite of +the evidence of some once fairly rich timberland and deep topsoil, the +Cape does not convince you of any depth and permanence other than its +alliance with salt water. + +The sea gives and the sea takes away, breaking through a barrier beach +during winter storms and roaring into the marsh and sheltered inlet +behind, cutting down cliffs a foot or two a year, or imperceptibly +stealing inches from a low-lying shore; while it adds new beaches, +packs new tons of sand around an outlying spit or shoal. Last year, +when I accompanied a group of children on their geology class, we +uncovered a burying pit for horses and cows in the sandbank at the head +of one of the bay beaches. If there had been a farm in the vicinity, +a hundred years or more ago, the sea may well have cut in over half a +mile to reach these bones. + +The winds sweep overhead, or merely threaten, the beach waters lap +gently, or bridle and roar, and the only stability I feel is that of +the tides, a lasting balance between the give-and-take of water and +land. The Cape’s ravaged past and stunted present seems transmuted +into motion. What this spit of land has taught me is an altered sense +of the context of time. I once saw a tree either as material for the +woodpile, or something with a growth so slow as to pass notice. Now +I have begun to see trees moving by the million in a million varied +places. Natural change is made up of so many circumstances, the +continuum of life in its vast order is so far from being held down by +history, that everything requires us to move on into the distance. +It may well be regretted, but Cape Cod is not so much a place for +traditionalism as a victim of the beautiful and impatient earth. + + + _The Dead and the Living_ + +A cautious solemnity is beginning to take hold, although the weather +plays new tricks as it alternates between the influences of north +and south, east and west. Rain pours over the land. Then, on a warm +day, there is thunder and lightning at noon, succeeded by a furious +northwest wind after dark, bringing in a deeper cold. The wind hums and +roars during the night, and with the sky clear and the stars out, the +Cape has a new swept and running feel to it. + +On a night of full moonlight, there are glassy shadows between the +trees, with a dry surf of air; and if sight brings sound, almost +tinkling beams of light from the low moon. New stations, new harmonies +of cold are suggested by stiff trees on their low hills and hummocks, +standing against persimmon and topaz sunsets, or by a crystal edge on +the sunlight. + +We have had light frosts, but by the end of the month no consistent, +freezing weather has been reached. Then on the thirtieth the +temperature drops to 20 degrees. I notice a flower, Queen Anne’s lace, +still blooming, all by itself in a field of matted grass. During the +night the surface of the ground is frozen hard ... a cap of reality at +last, with no more lingering. There is a genuine glittering clarity +of cold, in cloud, and branch and stone. Out on the bay the low waves +look as if they had a harder push and pull to make, imbued with new +heaviness. A boy shows me the frozen body of a red-legged grasshopper, +perfectly preserved for a little while by a power to which its only +adaptation is death. What still stands above ground now faces poverty, +and primitive recalcitrance. + +There is a kind of ice sludge being nudged in by the tides along the +shore and through rippling purple waters of tidal inlets. There are ice +circlets around the marsh grass. Thin ice sheets form at the rim of +fresh-water ponds. + +The inland world seems either subdued or facing survival’s icy stare, +and even self-sufficient human society looks ready to draw in and hole +up for the winter. But since Cape Cod is surrounded by the sea, it has +another depth, another range, where other populations roam while the +rest of us wait and shiver. Above water, the more visible migrants are +those wintering sea birds--auks, scoters, black ducks, eiders, old +squaws, brant and Canada geese--that feed along the shore, in sheltered +inlets, or in waters farther out, depending on their habit. + +In my locality Canada geese and black ducks are swimming through +peat-rooted grasses off Paine’s Creek where the terns were fishing two +months ago. A line of white-winged scoters flies low over the heaving +waters of the bay. I watch two black ducks in the sky, approaching +from the north. They are coming over at high speed downwind with wings +beating hard. Then more ducks fly up across inlet and marsh, taking off +to windward. They swing back for a short stretch, then up again, as if +to hold position, like travelers reconnoitering, then fly on and out of +sight. + +Two miles or more from shore I see points of spray going up from the +surface of the water, and above them many large white birds continually +turning and diving, from a considerable height. These are the gannets, +that appear off Cape waters in the autumn after they have nested on +their island territories in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The immature, +first-year birds, which can also be seen diving for fish, are almost +totally black. They are usually not with us for long, since they pass +to winter feeding grounds, which may be as far south as the Caribbean. + +Anyone who has seen them crowding their nesting grounds on Bonaventure +Island off the Gaspé Peninsula, will know, from close observation, +how spectacular these birds are. They allow tourists to come almost +as close to them as chickens in a yard. Thousands of pairs nest at +the top of high cliffs or along their ledges above the water, each +with its established square foot or two of nesting territory. A loud, +rattling cry goes up, out of a multitude of hoarse croaks and groans. +I felt a great sense of pressure and establishment in this bird city, +this singular society with its consistent behavior and ceremony. The +pairs greet one another bowing, or with heads raised and the long thick +bills fencing. Their stiff carved heads are always in motion, always in +response to one another. It is a pressing, elaborate spectacle, ancient +and authoritative. + +Gannets are awkward landers. They come in stiffly and do a kind of +top-heavy tumble when they hit the ground; but as ocean flyers they +have no superiors. When I see them again silently gliding over the +waters off the Cape, I greet them for their earth-honored mastery. At +a distance they might be mistaken for herring gulls, but they are much +larger, and their long black-ended wings are typical. When you see +points of spray going up far out on the water, and white birds diving, +you have unmistakably seen the gannets. + +Earlier this month, during an easterly storm, with pouring, blinding, +deafening wind and rain, a few gannets were flying close to the +shore off Paine’s Creek where the water was a little calmer and the +atmosphere less overcast than farther out in the bay. The birds flew +low, since the fish they were hunting were in shallow water and +presumably close to the surface. On this stormy morning they flew in +an almost leisurely way over the surface, flapping their wings and +gliding. They would turn casually and dive, their wings half spread. +Then they rose and flew steadily on with power and ease, their wings +feeling the stiff wind, using it like the ancient professionals they +were. + +Now the north wind is blowing hard in the late afternoon. There are +slate-gray cloud masses in the sky, with a steely light where the sun +rays through, and the temperature has dropped to about 40 degrees. +Offshore over rocking, ponderous, gray waters, I can see the crowds +of gannets following a shoal line in the distance. They catch the +light from the sun when it strikes occasionally through the clouds, +intensifying their whiteness and turning the water green. They seem to +drift and turn continually, their arrowed bodies plummeting down, the +splashes appearing against white bordered waves. As I walk inland the +sun goes westward behind massive clouds and the gannets, far out, high +and white, keep diving with exact abandon. + +The intermittent sunlight wheels in to brighten the yellow grasses and +make the sand sparkle. To the north it is as if the sky were moving +down from its Arctic limits and announcing new themes, with iceberg +clouds, and high walls of cold against which the sun strikes new +fire, while the wind rushes down to make the message felt. A flock of +sharp-tailed sparrows lands on the sand, the marsh-side of a dune. They +fly up into the stiff, cold air, and then drop down into a small hollow +for protection. They stay there for a while under the great force of +wind and blown sand, not closely knit so much as spread out in what +looks like a perilous unanimity. If one sparrow should stray even a +foot away from the rest, in their over-all, though loose, pattern, I +feel as if it must be irretrievably lost, blown off, and separated. +That which holds the sharp-beaked, yellow-headed little birds together +is in their senses. They intercommunicate as one flock and form. It is +a control--as lightly manifested as the sparrows themselves, but as +powerful as the elements against which they stand. + + + + + _December_ + + + _An Old Place, an Old Man_ + +When the feel of winter comes, in November or early December--though +by astronomical calculation winter does not start until December +twenty-second--when the first hard seal is set on the ground, and we +are settled in with a new plainness, then it is not difficult to bring +back yesterday and its country living. Winter’s role in the year’s +wheel is an arresting, for the sake of renewal, a sleep, or half sleep, +for later waking. It has its own suspense and violence, its roars and +silences, like the other seasons, but in general its order is of a +different quality, having an inwardness and resistance, a bare, gray +need to keep things inside and hidden down. This is the time of year +that shows a plain connection between human beings and their land. + +I see last leaves whipping around the hollows off an old Cape road, +or walk through the now more oblique rays of the sun that yellow the +sandy ground held by thin, waving grasses, gray beach plum or bayberry +bushes, and I recognize what has been left behind. + +Here, surrounded by open slopes, is an abandoned house site, now a +cellar hole, walled by square blocks of glacial granite. Orchard +grass, timothy, and redtop still engage the old domesticity. Inside +their circle you can see where children played, water was fetched and +carried, chickens fed, and voices raised. There are yucca plants close +to the foundations, and a rose or two. I transplanted such a rose a +few years ago, and with added nourishment it turned from a slight, +single-petaled flower to a great bunch of pinkish-purple fragrance. + +Unlike some abandoned farm sites in other parts of New England, there +is nothing left here to show what the inhabitants did. There are no +harrows, stone bolts, yokes, or farm implements, not even any pots and +pans. The stones are left, and the faithful grasses, and beyond them +the crunchy, gray deer moss, and beard grass of indigenous fields. +It was a small place, of bare subsistence. Whatever the qualities +of the people who lived there, they left simplicity behind them. +Not too far away, a bulldozer is making a desert with giant scoops, +high-tension wires are marching by, and a plane rips the air overhead. +We are encroaching in our oblivious fashion, without delay. The new +domesticities may occupy only a tenth of an acre each, but they +engage all lands. The old domestic wildness cannot be replaced. It +was a lodgment limited by need, gray outside and dark within, perhaps +unbearably close and confined at times, but with a knowledge of its +earth. + +It seems to me that as the world has grown outward in recent years, +even I, a comparative newcomer to Cape Cod, have lost some local life +to memory. When you live in a place for the first time you see behind +it to its roots and grain, before the storms of circumstance blow you +away from it. I remember a few old men who seemed so representative of +the old Cape that it will never be the same now that they are gone. +The loss is of a country speech, the flavor of a flesh and blood +nurtured on locality. What has replaced them can be defined in terms of +California as well as Cape Cod, which means no detriment to either, for +what we are now obliged to consider is locality in a wider field. But +those old men were born as we may not yet be born, sturdily, in custom +and resignation. + +Nathan Black died in October 1957, at the age of ninety-two. He was +born in 1865, the year Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. He was a near +neighbor. His land abutted mine, and since he was the proprietor of the +Black Hills Barber Shop, I could walk down through the woods to get my +hair cut, for the price, in a trillion-dollar world, of fifty cents. +He was a heavy man, with bright brown eyes, and a head of curly white +hair. He fitted the open Cape Cod weather, or the weather fitted him. +I am not sure of the distinction. Nearly ninety years of change, of +natural cataclysm, of both peace and abysmal war in the human world, +had left him in the same place, with the same measure, outwardly at +least, of stability. + +When he left his place, or the customary orbit of work and old friends +that constituted his life, perhaps to drive out on a new highway or +to the chain store, he may never have stopped being surprised. I +remember his looking at me with a kind of amused questioning--but no +alarm--and saying something about no one belonging here any more. The +new population didn’t quite make sense to him. + +In the way of old countrymen who knew their boundaries, he was tough +and unforgiving in his role of landowner. He had his rights, “By +gawly!” and he would know when someone did him wrong. He held on hard, +and I suspect there were neighbors who felt the possessiveness too +strongly, but this being none of my business, I will go in and get my +hair cut. + +The shop, with a tool shed under the same roof, where “Nate” used +to grind knives and axes, stood, and still stands, across the yard +from the house where he was born. There are some other gray-shingled, +outlying buildings on both sides of a dirt road that runs through +scrubby woods and hollows, dry hills sloping down to marshy bottom land +... wood-lot country. One December day I rapped at the door, and he +put his jacket on and walked across the yard with me, where two white +ducks were parading and some red chickens giving the frozen ground a +going over. The old man bent down a little and spoke to his dog Bonnie, +a cream-colored spaniel, which had just wagged up to him: “Did you get +it?” + +Then, to me: “I lost an egg. Picked up five eggs, out of the hen yard +this mornin’, and came back with four. Maybe there was a hole in these +old pants of mine.” + +The barber shop was small, long and narrow, but he had a stove in +there that kept it warm. There were some old magazines on a bench +against the wall, with a black Homburg hat hanging on a peg. It had +been given him by an old customer, a wealthy man who had lived on the +Cape during the summer and had come in to have his hair cut for many +years before he died. There was a photograph on the wall of the two of +them with an inscription underneath that read: “Established 1884. A +satisfied customer is our best advertisement.” They were standing out +in front of the shop, smiling in the sun. + +“Feller came here yesterday and I had to clip him in the kitchen. Shop +was too cold,” Nate said. + +The calm of the place was comforting. It came, I suppose, from an +acceptance that emanated from him, and brought in many old friends, who +would sit down to say: “Nate, just thought I’d come over and pass the +time of day.” + +Whatever he had to say about other people never left them without the +honor of human circumstances. “Pretty close, he is,” he would say with +a little laugh, or “I guess he had a shade on” (a Cape Cod expression +for being drunk). “Guess you can’t hold on to nothin’,” he said about +some local theft, in a way that insisted on not being roused beyond +necessity. + +His origins were out of a kind of history of which there was very +little left intact except himself. He once showed me a tintype of his +mother, a handsome girl named Bridget Malady, who had emigrated from +Ireland in 1862. His father, Timothy Black, was born in Yarmouth, on +the Cape. At the age of ten he signed on as a cook aboard the packet +which sailed between East Dennis and Boston, and seems to have spent +a good deal of his life on intermittent voyages at sea. He was also +in the butchering and slaughtering business with his two sons. In the +autumn they used to butcher eighty-five hogs or more, at the rate of +three a day. And in some rough but related way, Timothy Black started +his son in the barbering business. Nate remembered how his father used +to cut his hair in the kitchen, long before the Black Hills emporium +was established: “I used to sit there while he was sort of pummeling +at me on the back of the neck. By gol! I sure did cringe when he was +chopping me with those women’s scissors.” + +While I, seventy or eighty years later, was sitting in the barber’s +chair, getting more expert and calmer work done on me, I assembled a +little of the past. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries an +expedition to the post office or the store took up a large part of the +day. That was the time when you could hitch the horse up to a post and +stop for a long chat, “having the capacity to waste time” as I heard a +Texan phrase it about some of his countrymen in the western part of the +state. People walked between their houses--there are foot paths still +showing--on barren hills. They had small herds of cows that foraged +on the sloping fields. Families used to picnic together by the ponds, +and there were barn dances on Saturday nights, which were sometimes +the occasion for a rip-roaring fight. I have heard it said that Nate +Black was the strongest fighter in the region, when outraged beyond his +normal patience, but he would reveal none of this prowess to me. + +The Black family also held dances in their kitchen. The father of +the house played the violin. On such occasions they would have plum +porridge suppers, or they served crackers, milk, and raisins, and +sometimes hulled corn. + +He was of a piece with his surroundings. I think of many things he +talked about while I was having my hair cut and they all meant the +gray, sea-girded land, and a human closeness to it. I think of the +deer that ate his beans, of his duck that was carried off by a fox, of +foxes being reduced in population by the mange, of a watering place +for horses by Cedar Pond in East Dennis (a beautiful pond with ranks +of dark cedars backing it up, and now being encroached upon by house +lots); and he talked about the big eels waiting to eat young herrin’ +(or alewives) at the mouth of a pond, and of sounding the depths of +Round Pond here in West Brewster. + +And then there was his dog which had to be chained up because it got +so wildly excited chasing rabbits through the woods that it was +constantly lost, having once been picked up nearly ten miles away; and +the coon that climbed a tree after a hen; and his little granddaughter +wanting to shine a flashlight through the window one night and +take a picture of a coon she saw outdoors, because it was “such a +pretty-looking animal.” + +There also come to mind the fishing boats all-over white with screaming +gulls, that he once spoke about with real excitement, and, of course, +the yearly work on his cranberry bogs ... he and his tart and lively +wife used to pick them together; and the shifting price of cranberries, +and his wood lots, and who was after him to buy some of his land. + +“Yes yes” he would say, in the Cape Cod fashion, and always, when a +customer was leaving the shop: “Come again.” + +His wife Emily died two years before him. Some time before that I +stopped to talk with him when he was scything the family plot in Red +Top Cemetery, which lies at the junction of two country roads, on a +little hill or high knoll up in the sky and the ocean winds. He told +me two women had come up one day while he was there and said: “What a +nice place!” He and his wife are buried there, in a place which has no +more permanence than any other, but for them and by them had the simple +power of acquaintance. + +[Illustration] + + + _Night in the Afternoon_ + +If I have left Nathan Black in the nineteenth century (although when +I last saw him he was deeply involved with a television set) or at +least in a tradition which no longer appears to sustain us, it is not +to emphasize that all continuity is lost. He has left us transients to +make what we can of the Cape Cod weather, without assistance, but the +examples it still offers are both patient and surprising. Storms and +stars never fail us. + +The theme this month is a growing cold, but whether we are to have rain +or snow, hard frosts, or comparative mildness is not known. If you +listen to what people say about the weather you go from apprehension to +apprehension. It is as though we were already working to keep our lives +open until spring. I suspect that by March we get tired of comment. In +any case it represents a communication with the forces around us, and I +am not one to disparage such banalities. + +“Good morning.” “What’s good about it?” Dead oak leaves hang like wet +rags in the cold rain. After the rain stops there is a cold moisture +suspended in the air with its own whiteness. There is a silence +everywhere, except for a chickadee’s harsh split trills nearby, the low +tone of offshore waters, and the indiscriminate sound of engines on +roads or in the sky. The woodchuck, the box turtle, and the chipmunk +are asleep. There are no insects above ground to catch the eye. The day +shortens, and we who are always calling for more sunshine, pleased at +the idea of some perpetual, impossible comfort, are obliged to confront +night in the afternoon. Life is quiet, stripped of redundancy. There +is a new restraint about our depopulated local world, and at the same +time new openings afforded. At least the season seems to offer another +quality for interpretation. Perhaps, for example, because the trees are +bare and the ground devitalized, we are to look up and find the sky. + +I come home one night under vast black reaches full of stars, almost as +thick as wet snowflakes. It is very still around me, a cold stillness +through the ground, but overhead the infinite dome almost resounds. It +is blazing, bounding, soaring with the means and light of existence. +I am not troubled at all that I look out from an unimportant planet +dependent on a common star, and am only able to see a few light-years +away, each light-year being a distance of six million million miles. +There is sight past sight. The strongest telescope is still an +extension of the human eye. Our measurements themselves are a form of +participation in that fantastic distance, which may not make us any +less lonely, but we have a mind in space; and since men calculate, by +observation of the heavens and of their earth, that the laws of life +are the same as far and farther than they can see, then they have +hearts and blood there too. I stand here on the cold ground, and take +sensual note of the universe. + +Then I move back into my domestic hole to do a little hibernating of my +own. A winter withdrawal sets in, when outer resources escape me. I am +drawn inward to human want and its frustrations, to common egotism or +inertia. The December days progress almost remotely. Who cares about +the secrets of that cold and darkening earth outside? Our problems are +sufficient unto themselves. + +But there is a natural complex of greed, a provision for appetite, +that brings men and earth to mutuality. Manifested by the weather, it +sometimes puts us out of doors to understand real fortitude. Instead +of easing on toward January, December begins to tug and roar. It snows +all day and there are north winds of from thirty to forty miles an hour +driving the snow against our houses, suggesting an extra struggle we +might not be quite ready for. Then it warms up to 2 or 4 degrees above +freezing, and the following morning begins with a cold rain and sleet +falling down with hissing, disheartening force. The temperature drops. +The sleet turns to snow, driving in violently from the north, hitting +the trees like bullets. The sky closes in. There is no horizon. The +wind swirls. Trees rock and bend. This is a storm with a great rush of +savagery, setting wild, grim traps for the unprotected. “Now,” it says, +“I have you. Try some adventures in this.” + +There is ice or cemented snow along the tree trunks in the direction +of the storm, so that by sight and feel I know the wind is from the +northeast quarter, without need of instruments. My hand tells me where +the present power is coming from. + +When the snow and wind let up a little, I head for the shore and find +signs down, gutters yanked out, and telegraph wires dangling across +the road. Salt water ahead of me is churning, tossing white spume +against the open shore, while the wind seethes, whines, and howls with +growing intensity. The feeling of conflict is everywhere around me--a +hurling and letting go, a bend and give, a clash, a holding against +insufferable strain. The sand on the upper beach is whipped into +stinging strength. The sea is almost boiling, its racing, conflicting +edges spray-lined. On top of an exceptionally high tide, great waves +run in over a sheltered inlet, sending their combers farther toward +the land. All points of contact and withdrawal, rise and fall, seem +to be concentrated in this monumental turbulence, a force that is +almost uncontained. Is it a replica in violence of the normally +unseen stresses and strains lying under a peaceful season, or a life? +Our bodies are made of air and salt water, in their components of +hydrogen and oxygen, carbon and nitrogen. A storm should be our organic +companion. But this cold screaming fury makes me take refuge behind a +wall. Man may have overcome the elements, but not his elemental frailty. + +Out over the gray and white waters, hovering against the wind in an +almost idle way, are several herring gulls. And, at the mouth of the +inlet, riding calmly on the roaring, running tide, facing up against a +thirty-five-mile-an-hour wind, is a loon--close-reefed, well fitted in +all respects to weather the worst. + + + _Two Encounters_ + +After the storm a hard cold sets in for many days. As a rule our +Decembers are comparatively mild, with the days alternating between +light rain and cool sunshine. Now the very great plunges of the cold, +driving the frost deep into the ground, freezing the pond waters, +starting a rim of pack ice around Cape Cod Bay, comes as a surprise, +something not known before. The weather bureau, explaining the cold +as being the result of a vast Canadian high-pressure system, speaks +of its unusual “fetch and intensity.” Ten degrees above zero is not +severe as compared with conditions in other parts of the world, but +this unseasonal extreme is a local reminder of the earth’s potential, +and just how much we depend on the normal rhythms of the year. We gasp +with cold, turn up the heat, and think that cataclysm is a small thing +to the universe. + +The cold around us creates a different earth. It demands a readjustment +of the senses, as though it were ready with amazing new suggestions. +One sharply cold morning when snow lies fresh on the ground I stop by +the cemetery where the Blacks are buried, on my way to town. There +is something about this day that asks attention. It sings. Pure +crystalline masses creak underfoot. The tune of the cold finds an edge +on my bones. Pines, stiff cedars, locust trees, hard ground and stone, +all share in resonance, being forged and tempered by the cold. The +little graveyard hill is a tympanum, or sounding board, very highly +pitched, so powerfully taut, being plucked very lightly by the air with +sharp whispers and twanging sounds being sent across the snow, that it +might be ready to send one chord, incomparably new, into the whole sky. + +I start to go away, but a tiny, almost casual trill separates itself +from the vibrations of the cold. I keep listening and in a few seconds +see a bird rounding the branch of a cedar tree, not twenty feet +away. Working in and out of the branches, coming in to view and then +disappearing again, is a flock of purple finches, eating cedar berries. +The males are washed with a raspberry color that keeps appearing +through the dark green masses of the tree like intermittent lights, +hints of fruitfulness in the winter’s containment. + +Suddenly, surprisingly, a light brown, speckled veery appears on the +open branch of a locust. This summer bird, out in the glittering cold, +seems to have a startled, wildly timid look in its eyes. Its slim body +hesitates, with the problem of aloneness perhaps, or direction, or food +in this white earth that has cut so cruelly into its subsistence. Then +it flies off into a wood of pitch pines, and I hear a low sound, the +mere snatch of a thrush’s warbling. + +Just by stopping for ten minutes instead of hurrying on, I have been +put into a new relation with the morning, and have seen a singularity +and sacredness to all its parts. It could happen in Moscow or New York. + +A day or two later I am in the city, just before Christmas, when the +stores are rushed and jammed with shoppers. It is late afternoon and +yellow lights flood out of great glass windows and crowded doors. There +is a tinkling of bells, cups, and tambourines, a tooting of horns +through the general confused roaring of the streets. Just as I pass a +huge department store, I hear an odd, disassociated center of pipings +and cries. I can connect it with none of the turmoil around me. + +I stand and listen. There, across the street, like a theatrical +backdrop, is an abandoned brownstone building, four or five stories +high, with a grimy, ponderous façade. It is covered with ledges and +its dark, empty windows reflect the pond-dark evening skies ... every +now and then a white cloud moves across them with disembodied calm. +On the ledges are hundreds of starlings, pushing, crowding, hopping, +flying up against the windows, perched all along the heavy front of +the building--dingy birds, with their lost Christmas cries. There they +are, adapted almost domestically to man’s world, tough in a way that a +purple finch or a veery cannot be, but still a race apart. + +Then I am back down the street again with my own tribe that teems with +general might and inner purposes of its own, going and returning--out +continually--representatives of a force of mind that can gauge the +mechanics of the universe, and in animal power overrunning the earth. I +see in these shoppers an evolutionary line of vision never satisfied, +a history of cities, ledges of light running to unknown futures. +The world is in the hands of these omnipresent and familiar beings, +the young and the old, black-haired, brown, yellow, or gray, in the +indefinite shapes and interchanges of their lives--the human race +hurrying through its own lighted ways. And if I shouted: “Stop! Look +away from yourselves. Consider the starlings!” with what sort of mild +madness would I be credited? + + + + + _January_ + + + _Exposure_ + +It is said that winter, being the season when the sun shines on us +obliquely, is a period of death, or, as the dictionary puts it, of +“dreariness, old age and decay.” We are being deprived of a portion of +original energy, and recognize occasionally that if we were out far +enough, in as extreme and bare a relationship to the cold as the birds, +but without their equivalent in insulation, we would have a hard time +surviving (though birds are also perishable and have their share of +disease and death from starvation). But we take care of ourselves, in +such an elaborate and consuming way, that the grand extremes of weather +may only succeed in being a nuisance. The freezing weather deepens this +month, after a few days of moderate warmth at the start, and I am free +to complain about the heat bills. The car skids and turns a half circle +on the highway, which is covered with glare ice one morning, and I am +afraid, not for myself so much as for my new car. How could I manage +that ten miles back without it? Self-protection may be all that winter +means to us, though it is a term that can only be comparative in an age +of manufactured violence. + +Suddenly there is a tremendous thud above us that jars and rocks the +house. It seems to tug at the vitals of the earth and would cause us +more than mere shock if we were not aware that it is a plane breaking +the sound barrier, thousands of feet in the air. A minute or two later +I hear a familiar gabbling, a mixed bugling, overhead, and run out to +see twenty Canada geese, hurrying fast down the north wind in four +separate flocks aligned in flight. With their long necks stretched out +and strong wings beating they are fleeing for their lives, frightened +up from winter feeding grounds along the shores of Cape Cod Bay. The +earth, for the time being at least, is committed to mankind. The geese +cannot so frighten _us_. They are innocent of ways to “control their +environment.” + +Then there is almost complete silence again, and I understand what is +meant by the “dead of winter.” Under the cold blue stare of the sky +nothing seems to be happening. Each sound--a crow cawing, a car on the +road, the rustle and clink of a clump of dead oak leaves--is by itself, +occupying wide, unpopulated plains. Without the wind, the air too +presses on me, with a cold weight. I walk through its depths, feeling +it against my face, and suddenly realize that limited sea of oxygen in +which we live, this side of outer space and its violet darkness. + +This silence may be just as alarming to some people as a “sonic boom.” +Nothing seems to be going on. There is an intensity of rest. The demand +for something new is unsatisfied. There are men who stray into nature +from a city’s booming, reassuring hive, and are frightened by being +caught in necessity--one of the year’s cold, unspeaking tides. Perhaps +they also recognize how much the sun provides us with other than +pleasant company. There is a winter in us from which we will not soon +escape into warmth and joy. + +Still, this frozen land contributes to a global art. It is cold and +silent here because it is hot and loud in India. And how can we spread +our wings without a knowledge of deprivation? While I am closed in +I know there are redstarts wintering in Mexico and arctic terns in +the Antarctic, and when I greet them on their return it will not be +only because they have come home (a bird’s nest is not a house but a +platform from which to start), but because home comprises so large +an area. Some birds, if they survive their first year, will reappear +in the vicinity of the place where they were reared. So will salmon, +shad, and alewives, returning to their parent stream after years +of absence. We are conscious of the great amount of space their +journeying requires. Species of fish or birds show great variation in +the extent of their migrations, and the whole pattern is wider than +a continent. Their movements are not only consistent with periodic +motions of climate, weather, the tides, but may be visible evidence +of earth changes that go back for incredible lengths of time. They +require an unrestricted measure for their lives and deaths. Men alter, +restrict, or use up, to suit their needs and fancy. Then they move +elsewhere. I see that one of the young men who has been designated +for training in space flight, an “Astronaut,” says he accepted the +challenge of being sent aloft in a capsule because we were “running +out of interesting things to do down here.” The destruction and denial +of earth’s resources must have gone farther than we realize. But the +life journeys continue, from one sunny round to another, over the earth +and its wide-ranging waters. How much we must be missing, even in the +wintertime! + +Before dawn, after the windless day, the temperature drops to 10 +degrees. A walloping, tugging, brutal wind sets in. The frost so +rigidifies the needles of the pines, burning into their cells, that +they look dark and scorched. I feel as if the rigid and dizzy earth +were being kicked around, rocked like a topheavy boat--the trees its +masts. The wind cries: “Remember poverty!” and I go gasping for breath +through the fierce air, feeling as perishable as a moth. We may be +having the mere taste of an extreme, but this penury weather is huge +and mighty all the same. It is the result of a Labrador storm one +thousand to two thousand miles in extent. Its balanced fury tests all +it meets. + +On this kind of day I am an inland lover. To be wind-cut and +sandblasted serves no good human end. As if in general proof of that, +I meet no more than a car or two on the highway, and see no one on the +streets of the town. The shore is desolate, hissing with driven sand. +On the surface the bay waters in the distance are being stiff-armed +and flung away. New ice, morose and slow, is nudged by an outgoing +tide in the inlet at Paine’s Creek. Gulls drift slowly upwind like +clouds. And on the wide tidal flats--the searing, biting, turbulent +grounds--groups of Canada geese are stalking through shallow purple +waters that reach, wind-scudded, over shoals of peat. Then a new +group wheels in low and settles down with the rest. I can hear their +honking under the sound of wind and sand. Beyond them, in steely waters +speckled green, is a small flock of black ducks. + +This is no inanimate landscape. Under the given power, the +abandon of the wind, the restrictiveness of the cold, is still an +all-containing balance. I listen to those famous travelers the geese +as they communicate and am taken a little further out on violent and +unreceptive grounds, past my own shivering. + +Inland again, listening, taking shelter in the lee of the wind, just +as a rabbit jumps away from me and runs under a tangle of bull briar, +I am conscious of all the unseen hiding and endurance around me. What +else moves here, beside the wind that suddenly rushes in and roars so +loud that it makes the trees groan and the large round clouds hurry +on? The trees, swaying and creaking, are the most obvious, the most +exposed. They are half dead, rigid, hard, inert. The sap coagulates +in the extreme cold. I cut a twig with my knife and the pitch is dark +and frozen. The trees in their containment, adapted to less water and +light, getting scarcely any nutriment, are able to make their stand in +the open while other lives must hide. + +In the late afternoon the ground stirs harshly. Leaves run in dead +abandon. The wind seems to sound a burst of doom, and then seethes in +lively rage. A dead limb cracks. I am on the trigger edge of ultimate +need. Blue-gray clouds hang over the shaking fingers of the trees. +There is a collective power that flays us all, without discrimination. + +The shadows have left the earth. Light stays in the sky, and then +begins to go. There are rims of pale electric light in the west. Long +cloud shoals, now white and pearly gray, stand against wide bands of +blue and mauve and pink, like the baked desert cliffs of the Southwest. +Finally, and I feel all finality, as the ringing air sheds down +enormous heavy cold, received numbly by the earth, the sky turns a +startling gemlike blue. We are turned into night. The sky’s mineral +beauty shifts to pure blackness lighted by the stars. There is an +almost shrilling intensity in the air above the earth-binding wind, and +I am conscious of nothing but height, height beyond reach. + + + _Ice on the Ponds_ + +The air is crystalline and the sunlight through the pitch pine needles +gives them a glassy sheen. This is one of those rare times when almost +all of Cape Cod’s innumerable ponds are iced over and the children can +go skating after school. It has been consistently cold for weeks, with +comparatively little snow, and the pond surfaces tempt all skaters to +soar. + +But we have had a day and a half of thawing weather. When my young +daughter and I go to a pond to skate, we hear its fine whomping sound +as it expands under the sun’s warmth. What looks like jagged broken +bits of crystal, catching light on the surface, turn out to be part +of the ice structure, thawing ice refrozen. We find hundreds of water +spiders frozen in around the edge where yesterday they had been brought +out into the water by rain and comparative warmth, and on the way we +found a dead worm on top of frozen ground. So some animals are flung +around with the season and respond fatally to chance. They belong to an +allowance left over from December. Then it ends, and the day hardens +like the ice. It is as though the helpless were not to be allowed their +helplessness for some time to come. + +To skate on a long stretch of unmarked ice, over green reflected +clouds, with the sound of clear air swishing past your face, is to +voyage, full sail. It is a shining freedom, and our only competition +is in play, to skid and turn and rush like water birds in the +springtime--the only hardship a bruising fall. Under black holes we can +see down to the bottom of the pond, where there are little forests of +green moss and water plants, very still and soft. Suddenly a diving +beetle swims quickly and erratically across and then a slow tadpole +moves into sight. There is enough sun-induced warmth in the shallow +water at the pond’s edge to allow life more play, though in that +respect a pond is easier on its inhabitants than the land. With its +cover of ice it is now in a state of “winter stagnation.” There are +frogs buried in the mud and fish moving sluggishly in cold, stabilized +waters. But this is an environment which always allows activity in at +least some of its inhabitants throughout the year. Its extremes and +revolutions of temperature bear little comparison with those of the +land. Our hazards are of a sterner kind. + +When we kneel on the ice, where the mobile sky is reflected, and +look down in, the water world seems half awake and half asleep, half +tropical and half glacial. The waters are almost motionless over +intermittent green carpets and through their black depths. The whole +being of the pond seems to move independently of our surface storms. It +has a heart of its own. + +The winter land is a harder environment, though we sometimes make +more of its rigidity than we need to. At the pond’s edge I brush past +a bayberry bush, and its dried, dark gray berries smell as pungently +and herbaceously as they did when ripe--waxen and pewter colored--in +the fall. There are checkerberry or partridgeberry plants rimming the +pond. In fact they grow well through the acid earth of these woodlands, +and their shiny leaves stay green throughout the winter. They are also +called wintergreen, or mountain tea, and their leaves taste spicy and +aromatic. Are we still common enough to make new names instead of +numbers, implying that familiarity, touch, and association have not +been left behind? + +You know the checkerberry, hugging the ground with shiny, flavored +leaves, tiny bell-like flowers pure white in the late spring, bright +red berries in the autumn. Something to say hello to, and not +merely to recognize as _Gaultheria procumbens_ and pass by. To name +means to know, love--perhaps even to laugh at. The fact that the +checkerberry has so many other common names is a human distinction. +Consider: grouseberry, spiceberry, oneberry, chicken-berry, deerberry, +groundberry, hillberry, ivyberry, boxberry, teaberry, greenberry, +ivy-plum, chinks, drunkards, red pollen, rapper-dandies, wax cluster, +redberry tea, Canadian tea. They dance in friendship. I have been told +that the name “Drunkards” comes from the use of checkerberry tea as a +remedy for a hangover, but am unable to corroborate it. + +While I am pulling off my skates and chewing on a spicy leaf, a trim, +round little chickadee comes within four feet of me and twitters and +scolds. Then two warier golden-crowned kinglets show up suddenly in a +nearby shrub, crying: “Tseet! Tseet!” and flit away. We climb up the +steep sides of the pond and face the slopes toward the north. Bold +gusts of wind strike us. Stiff briars and branches whip us as we walk +along a narrow path, and the play of winter sunlight through the clouds +goes lively across the grasses and through the gray trees. + + + _Contrast and Response_ + +January seems grim and contained. This is not the time to expect life +to declare itself. Even local human circumstances are such as to +prove a kind of gray waiting. While the rest of the world retires in +Florida, counts change in New York, or struggles with vast new shifts +and divided aims, Cape Cod stays down, and holds on. The population +is five times less than that of the summer. It is the barren, exposed +peninsula it used to be, with the exception of the new woodlands and +all the cottages. We are linked by highway and modern communicatory +apparatus with the rest of the continent, but in this season there is +a feeling of diminished wants. The human pulse begins to rise in April +or May, when people paint and refurbish their motels and cottages in +preparation for the great migration of vacationists. Now the economy +subsists more on expectation than fulfillment. The human squirrels +have stored away their acorns. The forage is thin in January for all +inhabitants. + +The weather roams still, with our surrounding waters. Why live here but +for the reason that there is always an element of sufficient grandeur? +Although the sea might not be visible for the motels and trailers +before your eyes, a few miles, or a few yards, brings its untouched +enormity into view. The sky is wide, and the ocean waters are still +breathing loud or low with fruitful magnitude. They are at the end of +every road. And when the foghorn bawls from Chatham like a lost cow, we +know that there are still headlands and ships, the uncalculated and the +unknown. + +On the Cape’s south side, facing the heavy Atlantic swells and +breakers, the high cliffs are often covered with miniature scrub oak +forests, or thickets--they are scarcely more than two feet high, as +well as stunted pitch pine with a mustard tinge to their needles. Dark +clumps of hudsonia, a heath, resembling heather, cover the hollows +and slopes, the billowing mounds on cliff tops above the beach. The +vegetation lies low against wind and salt spray. It looks rusty and +tormented. On the steep slopes to the beach there are milky films of +snow, and then patches of white foam at the bottom. The surf roars in, +sidling with great licks and washes along the sands. + +The sea beyond is full of long waves that take the low sunlight of late +afternoon and swoop and fall with it. They come in from the distance +and then rise as they approach the shore, showing their marbled, curved +surfaces, to pause at the crest and plunge down. A stiff north wind +holds them back a little. Manes of spray whip back at their cresting +and when they fall the spray rises up almost vertically. Just inshore, +where the breakers fling in their prows along the sloping beach, the +waters foam with constant movement, in and out, all bubbling and +shifting with a turbulent milk, whose surface looks opalescent--colors +of blue, green, and pink bordered by heavy pearl. And what a sound! A +thundering, a loud fermentation, with an occasional great soft clash of +waves like cymbals, the long surf roaming and lunging in the evening +light for miles and miles. From where I stand on the cliff top I can +see a little group of men and children jumping and throwing sticks and +stones into the surf. They run back and forth with its rhythm, playing +touch and go with it, running to keep warm in the wind, playing as if +they had to, dancing for the surf’s thunder. They laugh, shout, hurl +driftwood into it. They jump and wave their arms as the water reflects +their images, just on the fringe of an immense, terrible beauty, +responding with an antic kind of love. + +The sea provides a cold, unfathomed latitude in the tightness of +January. On land too there is a kind of under-rhythm of things allowed, +or rather a special winter pace and timing, each life with its +relation to the cold. The thin light and air seem to define the leeway. +Thick snow showers slant in. Sky, hills, and shore are blotted out. +There is nothing to be seen but the naked trees, the oak leaves like +tattered old flags holding against the wind that kicks the flakes +ahead. The storm abates into gusts, and occasional sweeps of snow +with blue patches blown clear in the sky. At each advent of this blue +clarity, with sharp spun strands of light coming in from the sun, the +birds respond. Snow swirls. Wind seethes. There is nothing to be seen +but a tree sparrow or a chickadee at the bird feeder. Then the blue +patches show again and the earth clears to vision. A flock of juncos +fly in, or a blue jay glides through; a red-tailed hawk screams in the +sky. It is as if they were all puppets dancing for their master light. + +[Illustration] + +Special response is as much a part of winter as extreme reaction or +withdrawal. I see this in the birds. I hear it in the yawing creaks of +a pine, in dead leaf stir, wind speech, in their collaboration. I feel +it in the quality of the season, its rigid shocks, its holding hard and +letting go, its suspense and trigger edges, the obedience it calls for, +the inertness and tight compliance. + +Within the temperature range permitted it, life now shows many +hairbreadth balances. Some marine animals “deactivate” during the +winter--the equivalent of that coma and lowered metabolism which is +called hibernation in the woodchuck or the chipmunk. If no ice blocks +are in the way, and I can walk out over the offshore flats, I find +periwinkles still holding on to rocks or driftwood, but obviously +slowed down almost to a stop. On the other hand, common rock barnacles +breed during the winter months as far north as Delaware and New Jersey, +sending out eggs which will hatch in cold sea water into free-swimming +larvae. And there is a red crab in Boston Harbor which stays active +throughout the winter. + +When it gets abnormally cold, shellfish “supercool.” They have a +freezing nucleus and will survive if not suddenly jarred. + +Adaptation to ranges in temperature varies enormously. Some plants and +animals die when the temperature drops beyond a certain point, and +others when they are released too quickly from freezing temperatures. +Some animals avoid the cold by migrating, or they are able by +specialized habits to eat and survive as permanent residents. + +The conditions of life in its natural environment, whether land or +water, vary from place to place, although the sea, for example, is +less extreme and difficult than is the land. Such conditions may show +dramatic contrasts in areas that are fairly close together. Because +of the influence of the Labrador Current, the waters to the north of +Cape Cod are colder than those to the south, where they are influenced +by the Gulf Stream. As a result, there are some species of marine +invertebrates which exist on one side of the Cape but not the other. + +The frog, a cold-blooded animal whose tissues approximate the +temperature around it, lies in the cold mud, sometimes in blocks of +ice, an intrinsic part of winter. The blue jay, on the other hand, is +less helpless, and is able to forage above the ice and snow. Like man, +it has an internal temperature of its own, regardless of the weather; +although man is without the insulation of feathers or fur. A thing +apart, I run to my house, my city, the tunnels of my society, in order +to escape the cold. I wonder, though, whether this mental animal, a +great experiment in complexity, is not as perilously balanced as any +simple organism, a mussel or a clam, in the extremes of temperature and +environment. + + + + + _February_ + + + _Secrets in the Open_ + +Rain comes, heavy, cold, inert. Dirt roads begin to turn to mud. +Then the vice tightens again. Below freezing temperatures take hold, +putting a new strain on plants and trees lately thawed. It is not +steady, continuous cold that now threatens life, but the shifts between +freezing and thawing--alternates in the caprices of energy. We are not +allowed to open our pores and eyes too much, lest we be taken unawares, +stopped as we try to start again. + +I am hungry for release from winter’s power. I imagine, hopefully, that +the buds on the oak trees are a little fatter and the pine needles +greener. If everything is ready to bloom when permitted, I am ready to +say the word. But in fact the earth turns, and there has been a gradual +increase in daylight for two months. The skunk cabbage has already +reacted. The conical tips of its buds are pushing through frozen +ground, showing that all life is not confined to pumping hearts. The +ferment goes on in many ways, although the imperturbable action of a +skunk cabbage, following the global year’s own pace, is not something +to give me as much cheer as a blue bird’s song. + +Zero and subzero weather is unfamiliar on the Cape and when it comes it +feels incalculably cold. It is face-burning, dry, and piercing. Icy, +crackling abysses hang in the air. There is a fire in a neighboring +town. A small clothing store has caught fire in the early morning when +the proprietor was away. Leaden gray smoke lifts above it through heavy +walls and winds of cold into the sky. A small crowd gathers on the +other side of the street. They stamp hard, hold on to their ears, and +watch the fire truck hurling tons of water into the black interior of +the store, a little yellow frame building with nothing left to it but +its name--the letters still showing on a dirty sign above the door. + +A stove caused it, they say. They wonder whether the man had any +insurance. Was this all he had? They watch in sympathy. They walk away +saying: “Who cares!” They laugh, and as the fires show signs of going +out, they cry for more. What is there in us that cries out for disaster +and responds so readily to accidents? + +I hear brutality and kindness, all in the same crowd, cold laughter +and silent sympathy. Here are our meetings, all in the one extreme of +a winter day, showing the allowances and shifts in human weather ... +hidden fires almost seen. + +In a day’s time the great cold is gone. Frost still lies deep in the +ground. The twigs of shrubs and trees shiver wildly and delicately. The +sun strikes us more directly. It sheathes the tree tops and a running +slate-blue sea, and the day seems more open, receptive to that release +I look for; but there might be a magic there that will pass before I +find it. I spend as much time stumbling as in discovery, stumbling +over debris, cans, and broken glass, like this stretch of drab ground +just off the highway, bordering a salt marsh. It has the grim look of +scalped ground, having been robbed of its topsoil. The only life is a +starling, perched on a bare sumac. At the edge of the marsh I clamber +over colorless litter, logs, branches, piles of thatch shoved in and +rocked by the tides. Things seem tediously dead. + +Something says stand and wait, look out and over; and when I do life +stirs, assembles, and flies. The yellow marsh grasses sway beyond me. +Ice shines white in the drainage ditches. A flicker, sun loaded, flies +over to the far side. Tall dry reeds rattle together. + +In silence, a female purple finch lands on a tree facing the wind, its +breast shining in the light. I hear the dry “tik” of a myrtle warbler. +Then a chickadee swings and loops out of a wind-washed pitch pine above +me. + +Through the thickets of alder, shad, blueberry, and sumac on the +surrounding banks, I become aware of a sweet spring voice, then of +small singings here and there, and when I follow them up I realize +they come from the shrubs themselves. Twigs rustle and touch. Gray +branches out of frozen ground sing in contact. Even the marsh reeds +make occasional sharp, squeaking twangs. There is no melody among the +birds. A robin, although it is as red as it will ever be in spring, and +fatter, with feathers puffed out on the cold, flies to an alder bush, +where a few dried berries are still hanging, to perch without a sound. + +The music is there, though it may become louder and richer in a later +context. Musical capacity is not confined to a few animals, or to +spring and summer. Cold air and frost rehearse with plants as well, +under the changing sun. The song of light is played in many ways. + + + _The Sea in the Ground_ + +It is on just such a day, when hope, interest, renewal seem +to be afforded, though held in check, that I find other local +residents--other people, other customs--that are not only in readiness, +but blooming with color as though it were summertime. The temperature +is barely at the freezing point. The air is bright and clear, and the +top of the ground is played over by sunny warmth. In flowing fields +that skirt the oaks, the reindeer moss, with many branches, perhaps +suggestive of antlers (though it gets its name because it provides food +for reindeer and musk oxen in the frozen tundras of the Arctic), is +gray like dawn dew, or an almost luminous gray-green. Light nests of +snow with sparkling hexagonal flakes rest between its curly fronds. + +The reindeer moss is one of the lichens. A lichen, each separate plant, +multitudes of which compose the visible growth, is a composite of a +fungus and an alga, seen only through a microscope. The alga contains +the coloring matter, or chlorophyll, and can therefore carry out the +process of photosynthesis, manufacturing food with water and sunlight. +The fungus, which has no such ability, wraps its threads around the +alga, protects it from the sun, and stores the moisture for their +partnership; and, if they are of the rock-growing variety, anchors them +both securely. + +The lichens are tough. They can endure extreme contrasts in +temperature, and hang on in barren areas where other plants could +not get a foothold. In fact, they are pioneers of millions of years’ +service. They prepared the way for all the changing elaboration of +plants with leaves and stems that followed them, after they had broken +down bare rock with their acids, dissolved it, cracked it, and combined +their own dead materials with the rock particles to form soil. + +In these round-edged plates of lichen that cover rocks or tree trunks +in the bare February woods, I see a life that is almost independent of +the season. It goes beyond or behind our immediate knowledge of it into +a kind of primal security, settling in where little else is possible. + +The color of lichens is the color of the green algae of the sea and +of fresh-water ponds. If their blue-grays, gray-greens, or yellows, +bring up the cast-steel color of ocean barrens to my imagination, or +green water lolling at the sand’s edge, or underwater depths running +with fish and shafts of light, there is knowledge to back me up. The +progenitors of the lichens and their relatives the mosses--this richly +green hair-capped moss that soaks up melting snow in the sunlight--were +unicellular organisms that formed in the sea. The line is direct. The +algae in lichens need water. Without it they would not be able to make +food or reproduce. + +(The blue-green algae, which as a species is abundant in both marine +and fresh waters, as well as in the soil, has the ability of lichens +to endure very difficult environments. It can exist in icy pools or +hot springs. The latter extreme was brought home very forcibly to me +not long ago in Nevada, when I saw this plant growing at the edge of +a fissure from which hydrogen sulphide gas was puffing out. The algae +was growing where steam condensed near the surface and must have been +thriving in temperatures of nearly 200 degrees Fahrenheit.) + +The color of our inland lichens and mosses changes with the rate of +moisture. Reindeer moss withdraws in dry months as a method of coping +with a disadvantageous season, instead of trying to carry on an +uncertain battle for existence. It shrinks, in other words, turning dry +and crunchy underfoot, but in wet weather it absorbs, almost drinks up, +water, and then turns spongelike and its color gleams more richly. + +In the absence of leaves filtering the sunlight, the trunks of the +larger oaks are dappled and spotted with these colors of watery origin. +I say the larger oaks because the lichens once started may take a long +time to spread. The golden lichen is a very slow-growing species, +although there are many stone walls in this region that are covered +with it. I have watched one spot of golden lichen for two years or +more. No bigger than a fifty-cent piece, it grows on a stone step +outside the house, and has hardly expanded at all. + +So it is an enduring kind of fertility that shines here, as the gray +sea waters rock in the distance. And when I turn over a log, or take +up a handful of spongy oak leaf humus, half thawed in the sunlight, +there is visible evidence of the life now arrested in the frozen soil. +I find a millipede, curled up like the shell of a chambered nautilus. +I hold it in my hand and keep breathing on it, until it comes to life +and starts moving around, stretching out, its myriad legs moving +with fantastic synchronization, ready to be busy again, traveling +seriously with the given purpose of eating bits of leaves, breaking +down organic matter in the earth. It is suggested that the millipede +may have been one of the earliest animals to leave the ocean, where all +life presumably began, and take to the land--one of those statements, +of course, that leaves millions of years in the balance of human +guesses, but gives me another approach to ageless tenacity in this +ocean-bordered wood. + +There is another ancient animal, the pill bug, damp bug, or armadillo, +which I find in semihibernation in the middle of a rotten log. Pill +bug because it can roll up into a perfect little ball; damp bug for +its choice of environment; wood louse for its habitat and general +appearance, although it is no louse but a crustacean, not an insect +but related to brine shrimp, water fleas, lobsters and crabs. It is +one of the few members of this family that have become adapted to life +on land, but it retains a set of gills, or at least respiratory tubes +with some functional equivalence to gills. It also retains an organic +affinity for wetness, needing constant moisture in order to breathe, +and will invariably direct itself to the dampest environment it can +find. One dry summer day I uncovered a bunch of wood lice way out in +the middle of a dusty patch of ground that looked like a miniature +desert. They had taken advantage of the only shelter available, an old +fragment of a board that held some shade and moisture under it. + +In terms of millions of years the development of millipede, or pill +bug, becomes extremely complex and partly unknown. When did the pill +bug leave the sea? How did its special breathing apparatus evolve? How, +in other words, did it gradually adapt itself to life as a land animal? +The problems of science are manifold. For an observer the very sense of +a link between primal sea and primal earth embodied in this half-bug, +half-marine crustacean, gives it great stature. There is thunder and +depth in the pill bug. + +I suddenly feel lost in a wood which does not speak of calendar days or +the month of February, but endless projection and development. + +Not lost too long--because the cold deepens and bites in the late +afternoon and gray clouds begin to spread and darken, as a raw wind +rises and shoves at the trees. I am caught again in the immediate. It +feels like snow. + + + _Need_ + +Early next morning the snow begins to fall, thin and glassy, bringing +in a new kind of quiet, unpredictable intent, spotting the thawed +surface of the earth. After a few hours the flakes are heavier, and +their momentum increases. They run down dizzily, with a ticking sound, +shrouding the distance, pelting dead leaves, collecting in clumps +between the needles of the pitch pines, coming down steadily and fast. +The temperature drops quite suddenly, and the snow flakes grow lighter +again. The wind sharpens, sending them ahead of it, lancing toward the +south. + +Hour after hour the snow collects with mesmerizing totality, and in the +colder evening the wind drives in with great fury and drifts pile up. +Dry snow whirls in and races around the windows, scouring them like a +dust storm. The wind molds a long drift on the north side of the house, +like flesh over bone, hip edge out and curving in, a woman’s shape, an +inanimate body molded by violence into classic beauty, hollowed, not +for love unless the wind is love, carved, marked down and conquered by +everything that is latent and unconquered in the storm. + +For many days afterward the arctic air reigns over us, and the snow +is crusted, blindingly white in the sun, a mortal danger to animals +whose food supply it covers. A long sickle, a new moon, of ice begins +to appear along the rim of Cape Cod Bay. There is crackling, grinding +cold, in a day when we rise a little past the sun instead of ahead of +it. The freezing nights, for some of the animals that have endured the +winter so far, must be interminable, except for the rabbit, caught +suddenly in the open by a great-horned owl. I found what was left of +it in the woods--a burst of little bits of fur in the snow; the owl’s +tracks; a mold left by the rabbit’s body. + +A hermit thrush dies of starvation, all its remnant food at winter’s +end cut off by the snow. It is pathetically light, held in the hand, +and when it is dissected only the tiniest patches of red meat show on +either side of the breast bone. + +I find a dead eider duck on the shore. It may have been blown against a +tree in the storm. One wing is broken, and the feathers buffed and thin +from beating. After its feeding grounds are frozen over in an inlet +farther down the Cape, a great blue heron dies on the snow-covered +shores, wounding its neck in the last throes. + +The bird feeder is crowded with intermittent flocks of chickadees, +juncos, and sparrows, all the ever present winter birds, pecking at +seed, flying off, hopping on the snow, each with intense, nervous, +active habits, keeping their wild, interrelated ways, entering in, +displacing each other, disappearing and returning. A bolt of a bird +suddenly tears in from nowhere and all the little ones are gone in +a burst. A sharp-shinned hawk, a small hawk with an appetite for +songbirds, has attacked in hunger and desperation, but it swerves when +it reaches the feeder--its aim disturbed by fear as it approaches the +house--and crashes into the window. It sits on the snow, terribly +stunned, its head drooping. The body is the light umber of an immature +bird, the breast streaked red. After a few minutes it stirs a little, +wing shoulders twitching, head up, and yellow eyes glaring with the +pure wild look of a hawk. Finally it lifts up quickly and beats away +toward a line of trees in the distance. + +The chickadees are soon back, jumping down to the feeder from an +overhanging pitch pine and bouncing back up like small puffs of +snow, having left danger behind with their usual vibrant but sturdy +acceptance. They are businesslike, determined little birds. If I could +only get inside that head behind the tiny black eyes, and follow. I +could swear it has the quickest perception of things. In any case it +acts as if there were no time for leisure. Its whole body is tripped +constantly at a staccato rate. The head moves up, down, sideways, in +the needs of sight and utility. It poises to hammer a seed held between +its tiny black toes and claws. It rounds the branch of a pine, ready +for the next find, wonderfully resourceful in the game of survival; +with a serious intent, gay in action, employing every second with such +thoroughness as to be completely careless of the outcome of life, and +so perhaps to surpass it. + +The mourning doves, whose low coos I mistook for an owl’s when I first +heard them, are another of our permanent residents, not often at the +bird feeder, but fairly ready visitors when they overcome their initial +fear. One flies in, wings whistling wildly, hesitates, turns back, +makes another foray, then waits in a shad tree thirty feet away, head +bobbing, eyes blinking against the sharp sunlight. When a mourning dove +flies up it shows a blue in its generally buff-colored feathers like +a blue evening mist after winter rain. It walks with pigeonlike head +bobbing back and forth, its thin tail standing out behind a tear-shaped +body like the shaft of a cart, then spreading round and wide at the tip +when the bird flies off. + +While the sturdy chickadees carry on business as usual, the dove, in +gentle alarm, waits for an hour or two before hunger drives it back to +stay and feed; and not long after that another dove flies in to join it. + +On the south side of the Cape where the open Atlantic surf keeps +the shore waters fairly free of ice, there are sea ducks, eiders, +baldpates, mergansers, blacks, or scoters, flying over the sea, or +settling down on its shifting surfaces. Tiny white buffleheads, which +make ducking dives into the water, show brilliantly against gray ice +on the banks of an inlet at Monomoy. A tornado-shaped formation of +red-backed sandpipers stands over the gun-metal sea. Patterns of wings +and water run together, while the land is still not broken out of its +frozen gravity. + +For life on land the power of the moment lies in a suspense which can +kill. Another week of cold, with snow on the ground, and many more +birds will die. Because this Temperate Zone, influenced by oceanic +weather, attracts more land birds than otherwise might stay, there is +a greater margin of arbitrary risk. The weaker individuals will die +first, by a natural law, but all are subject to unusual violence. The +comparatively mild coastal climate does not normally have a winter as +bad as this one, although extreme conditions are no surprise in North +America, and the risks vary for the lives exposed to them. One winter +with exceptionally deep frost in the ground, hard winds, and little +snow cover, is as dangerous to plants as a month of snow would be to +the birds. And a mild winter may result in death or damage from belated +storms and cold. + +We talk of storms and the hazards of temperature as though nature were +merely arbitrary, and inconvenience the essence of her plans. Being +less self-sheltered, life subject to wild nature knows the extremes as +standards of action. Living things are continually balanced between a +bold summer and a demanding winter, where storms are the rule and risk +is constant. They are unable to accept less. This terror has its pride. + + + _Death, Man Made_ + +Perhaps winter and death are complimentary, but the other seasons kill +too, in their degrees of need and fulfillment. General association +with death is so constant in nature that we could almost deny the +validity of the word. Death, if it is essential to the consumption +of energy, is at the least fuel for the fire of life and more likely +an inseparable part of the fire itself. In the natural year it is +all-pervasive and yet discreet and nearly invisible to us. We hardly +pause on its behalf unless its presence becomes spectacular. To see +a dead animal on the highway, whether or not it was killed by human +agency, is not something most human beings care about, one way or +another. This is not necessarily due to wanton disregard of life, or +inhumane feelings, but because we retain an unconscious acceptance of +death, as well as a natural ferocity--it is what is left of the animal +predator in us that beats the stranded fish with a stick, or shoots at +a bird simply because it is new to us. And yet, that death, which is +so constant a part of the natural rhythm that we disregard it when we +pass its evidence, may also become an obtrusive, isolated, and even +obscene element when caused by human agency. Our technology does not +represent such a mastery over nature that it is able to replace or +assume nature’s ascendant ordering of things. We employ the methods +of disaster with a heavier hand. Grace and accuracy of invention, +abundance of means, are accompanied by an inordinate amount of plunder +and pollution. In our power we are weak. + +I think of the hundreds of water birds that I have seen this winter +dying, starving, poisoned, or freezing to death, as a result of +having their plumage soaked by waste oil from ships. Tankers, merchant +vessels of all kinds, cause drifting oil slicks on the surface of +the ocean waters when their bilges are dumped at sea, or when their +tanks are washed out when approaching port. Oil wastes seem to have +made serious inroads on some forms of marine life in some areas, not +to mention their soiling of beaches and shore waters. The sea birds +drift into oil slicks at night when sleeping, or may even seek them +out, mistaking them for plankton slicks. Eiders, old squaws, scoters, +loons, brant, auks, all birds of our winter waters, come by immemorial +habit to these feeding grounds for fish, plankton, or water plants. And +because of the enormous and growing human traffic in ships and machines +they have become endangered by something for which nothing in evolution +has ever prepared them. Their feathers are tarred by an enormous brush, +wielded at random. + +[Illustration] + +Almost any day that I visit the shore I find a victim. Out on the sand +flats at low tide is a female eider duck, crouched down in such a way +as to make me mistake her at first for a dark brown chunk of driftwood. +When I walk up she stays there without moving, but her eyes are alive, +out of an unknown depth of helplessness and misery. The bird is dying. +Her feathers, which in the female eider, are a handsome reddish brown, +are not naturally glossy any more, but they shine, sickeningly, with a +heavy coating of oil. + +Some black and white males, whose necks are beautifully tinted, or +washed with green, as though they had taken it from some of the +northern sunsets from which they came, are swimming out over the water. +I see others, both male and female, scattered along the shore. They +have come on land, pathetically enough, to get warmer, in the sunny +but freezing winter air. Birds affected by oil pollution have their +feathers so matted together that they no longer serve as insulation, +and the cold strikes directly to their skins. Even a spot of oil no +bigger than a fifty-cent piece may expose them and cause pneumonia. So +the doomed sea birds huddle up against a sandbank, out of the wind, or +they waddle into the water when I approach, or stand on rocks just +offshore, vainly trying to preen dark smudges out of their feathers. +Another effect of oil on plumage is to make the birds lose their +buoyancy in the water, so that they swim half submerged, and when +alarmed they are unable to take off but beat their wings and splash +ahead with no result but further exhaustion. If the oil invades their +digestive system, as they feed or preen, they are poisoned by it. + +This winter the dying birds have been so conspicuous that many local +residents have become aware of a situation which might otherwise +escape their notice, although when it becomes really acute we may only +recognize it by deduction, because some species of birds will be gone. +It is reported that oil pollution has killed some 250,000 birds off +Newfoundland this winter. The razor-billed auk is now thought to be +virtually wiped out as a breeding bird in that area. + +Some families in this area have tried to rescue a duck or an auk, +having good feelings and a sense of responsibility. Success is none too +frequent, since it depends on experience and great care in handling. It +may take weeks to bring a bird back to normal vigor after it has been +oiled. But the fact that a few individuals care enough to try is worth +a thousand ships. + +“Whoever deals you this death,” I think, looking at some shivering +eider on the sands or finding its soiled remains, “cannot get by with +saying: ‘This is just a bird.’” The bird retains that wild distance +which always seems just beyond our grasp, and it is intrinsically wise. +Nothing we do to it can alter its original kinship with nature. It is +in harmonious balance with a complexity of which we are greatly in envy +and to which our carelessness only makes us strangers. + + + + + _March_ + + + _Restless Days_ + +Dormant vegetation is supposed to start awakening when the average mean +temperature rises to 43 degrees, normally occurring in the northeast +between April 1 and 15. Under unusually mild conditions, with the +average minimum temperature lingering for some length of time above 32 +degrees, growth begins sooner. This is of course a generality, a law of +likelihood, which may be applied to an indefinite number of conditions. +Spring may be spring, and winter winter, but March is a part of both +February and April. During the warm days in February, the buds of the +Mayflower or trailing arbutus begin to swell, while the skunk cabbage +is steadily pushing up through frozen, marshy ground. Life does not +recur after death so much as show its readiness; but in March the first +obvious bursts of change begin to show, like those mountainous clouds +coming up out of the west, with a fresh warm wind. + +The huge clouds roll loose and fan upwards in the gold afternoon. +Then the wind changes. A blowing, whispering snow comes out of the +southeast, cruel to promise, blotting out the swelling buds, the +feeling of release in the air, as if to say promise is nothing without +what is not promised. Nothing is realized without the possibility of +disaster. + +“Ahh!” the indrawn breath of a storm, a swirling and seething to make +life hide. The snow hisses incessantly into every corner and crevice. +High-rolling, roaring tides push in. The storm rises to a mountainous +capacity. The sea is fulsomely moaning, running under a white darkness. +Comber after comber curls over, spills and plunges down, pounding the +sands. + +The wind seems to pause. It races violently as if to have another try +at climactical energy. Then hail clicks down, spattering tree trunks +and ground. The snow is turning to cold rain. We are getting “dirty +weather.” I feel a load of anger and disgust in me that rivals the +storm. + +I am, to some degree, a subject of these changing days. I come out of +a kind of hibernation of my own that might not be connected with the +actual state of the weather, but it has its parallels. It is so with my +own temper. I hold it for fear of being overwild, and then some outer +wildness, a change of air, an adjustment to open sunlight, brings me to +a free delight, a sense of opportunity that I thought was gone. + +March may seem cold, raw, and gloomy for most of its duration, but it +begins consistently to offer evidence of new things. A white moth flies +up in the headlights of my car one night. A robin jumps down to the +wet, matted grass of the lawn. I seem to catch a new note of triumph in +a crow. The chickadees are playing, chasing, constantly flitting from +tree to tree. They call and answer one another like so many bells. They +have a call that is sometimes mistaken for a phoebe’s, but with three +notes: “Fee-a-bee.” And their song has a single phrase: “Here pretty” +with an occasional syncopated pause followed by: “Pretty, pretty.” +Sometimes two of them sing at the same time, one on an upper and the +other on a lower key. + +A male blue bird, rare these days, perches on a wire, singing in +sweet querulous tones, and I hear the continuous, talkative trill of +a purple finch, a lovely casual song that comes from its throat like +fast-dripping water. + +Snow falls, or sleet, and the songs stop. The weather clears and the +birds begin again, like chronometers of an underlying spring music. +The sunlight glitters and I hear them again, just as I notice that the +waters in the distance have changed from the hard blue of the winter +and are streaked with green, as if filled with new veins of life. Color +and music spring and change along with new numbers and demands, part +of nature’s structure of love, a slowly increasing force, spreading out +like a fan. + +There is a reddening in knotty oak twigs. I notice the leaves on a +dwarf clover plant, tentatively but surely uncurling. Small eels are +dashing back and forth in an aquarium with a new excitement, nipping at +their fellow inmates, a sunfish and a minnow. + +This is the time of year that many animals start moving out of winter +quarters, changing their range. On the highway I see dead muskrats +that have been hit by cars, as well as some male gray squirrels. The +squirrels sometimes dash back and forth across the road in a frantic +kind of dance. + +Frost still lies deep in the ground. As they have done throughout the +winter, quail pipe high, across the swishing, roaring wind. But there +is a new restlessness abroad. The air itself seems to change now and +then to an easier, looser abandon. Cold days, arrestations, come, but +in counterbalance to surges of allowance and release. Life is beginning +to seek its opportunities. + +I am impatient for spring, as raw, unseasonably cold weather continues, +and then I see a dark little caterpillar on the road, or a mourning +cloak butterfly, sprung out of hibernation. I hear a pair of mourning +doves, cooing with slow measure and deliberation, long silences +between. They seem to say something to me about attention. “What +will come may not be, as yet. But we know when. And you might if you +listened.” + +If I listened, and if I watched, found each insect as it came out of +hibernation, comprehended a tree as a living thing, beginning to stir +and seek, followed the development of buds and roots, the unseen life +that stirs in egg or chrysalis through every inch of ground. + +There is, in common with the rest of the year’s revolutions, nothing +neat or simple about the process of reawakening. It has started +already. Raccoons in this area begin to breed in February and start +foraging for their young in March. The great horned owl nests in +January and February. During the dead of winter a few animals such +as skates and barnacles start breeding in offshore waters. Variable +reaction in this time of change is as complex as the order which +controls it. + +Hibernation itself, that mysterious state which is somewhere between +death and sleep, differs in various species. Some mammals hibernate not +because of outside conditions but because of internal changes in their +blood stream, as if timed not to the weather but the year. Each life is +cyclical, corresponding accurately to the circling of the globe, but in +mode and terms it differs vastly. When the frogs begin to stir around +a local pond, birds, independent of hibernation, move back from other +climates. Late in March a few alewives swim into fresh water from the +sea. Late in April large numbers begin to show up, at a time which only +varies by a few days, year after year. Yet their arrival, like their +growth and responses, is conditioned by any number of circumstances +that are not only physically distant from us but may be remote as yet +from scientific scrutiny. To realize that the slightest changes in +temperature can affect whole worlds of life, and that this factor is +only one of many, can make a man feel hopelessly inept. + +So spring is not to come now, nor tomorrow, suddenly complete with shy +warmth and flowers according to our expectations, but will take its +periodic time, within a wide range and with enormous resources. By +the same token, no spring comes pleasantly, without a certain amount +of doom in its wake. A flock of male blue birds flies north too soon. +They die during a severe snow storm or a week of extreme cold. Thawing +takes place too suddenly for one form of life, and too quick a drop in +temperature will kill another. + +March is complex and March is in a rage, though I begin to feel a +universal response, a gradual turn, in the ground, through the trees, +down by the shore as the wind changes from tearing things loose to a +peaceful low breathing. I smell salt things on the edge of motion, +balanced on a tip of allowance. I hear what I am unable to see, +stirring, tuning up across the land. The response may be hesitant or +bold, delayed or premature, but it is coming. There is knowledge around +me, even purpose, whether or not it is working in mindless ways. When +I see sunlight playing on a blade of grass, I see the component parts +of wisdom. Then the grass joins the squirrel in its dance. Eels join +men in restlessness and speculation. + + + _An Extravagance_ + +We built a small concrete pool on our place, which is locally known as +Dry Hill, and so brought the life of water a little closer to us. In +the summertime the pool nurtures a migrant population of green frogs. I +have put nothing in it except some sunfish that subsequently died, so +that the occasional signs of new life it shows, like a water strider, +or some nymph or larva of an insect that flew by and deposited its +eggs, always strikes me as a dispensation from the sky. It is a proof +of life’s pressing, inescapable need to drive into every opening. + +Thinking of draining the pool and cleaning it out for the approach of +spring, I find a life so surprising and sudden as to take all human +propriety out of my system. There, on the brown, algae-fringed edge +of the pool, something moves, telling me that this well of water is +more than ornamental. Light olive-colored insects, scum-covered, +goggle-eyed, stalk on the edge, or skate very slowly through the +water--the strangest kind of revelation. What could I clean up now +without a sense of shame? + +The dragonfly larva, or nymph, which turns into an adult after a series +of molts, is a fantastic-looking creature. I take one out of the pool +and put it in a jar for observation. What I observe has no familiar +meaning for me. It stays motionless, except when the jar is moved. I +wonder again, as I did with a robber fly in the summer, what an insect +is. Is it only a stereotyped pattern on the changing screen of nature? +This one exhibits itself as a sort of embodied suspension, careless of +death or time, like the process of evolution itself. There is no hurry. + +The nymph lives for more than a week without food. Through a magnifying +glass, I look at the flat-bottomed, skiff-shaped body made shaggy by +algae-covered hair, the jointed legs, the upended tail. It is striped, +and there are brown markings over and across its goggle eyes, and +brown on its strange mouth part, which sits in front of its face like +a catchers mask. This part, or device, is called the labrum. It is +hinged, equipped with hooks, and can be shot forward rapidly to grab +and hold the animal’s prey. In the nymph’s case, as with so many other +things in nature, seemingly endless waiting and suspense precedes +occasional spurts of lightning rapidity. + +As I peer at it, greatly enlarged behind my magnifying glass, its +jointed legs suddenly flail up in front of me, and I actually feel a +tremor of alarm--which might be humorous, except for my sense that this +small dragon is timeless in some awesome way. + +As March is proving a seasonal release, at least in starting, so it +also reveals an extravagance in the form of a dragonfly nymph, and what +will come from that little insect shows that extravagance may have no +end. After a series of molts, the number and duration of which depends +on the species, a nymph will climb up on some green stalk spiking out +of the water, the skin on its back will crack, and it will emerge from +a sheath which it leaves behind, a dry, empty counterpart, and turn +into a big, gauzy-winged dragonfly. It is given two worlds, water and +air. Its embodied transformation from one into another is as rare a +thing as the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly; and is +evidence of a daring like the flight of Icarus toward the sun, but more +successful. + +Nature takes the nymph out of itself. It is no goggle-eyed inhabitant +of some other planet, no knight doomed to expire by weight of armor. I +see the fantastic in it and also a miraculous reality, which will not +rest with own products. This water predator will turn into a brightly +colored, great-eyed hunter, skimming everywhere over land and water, +darting across the roaring traffic of a city, flying over the surface +of the ocean miles from land. Time seems suspended in the nymph; and +this may be appropriate enough. It is the result of ages; but its +metamorphosis is fresh and new, a successful act of endless creativity. + + + _Interpretation_ + +It is in the nature of things to surprise, after temporary +imprisonments. Surprise is what men look for. It is a need. And this +puts us somewhat in the position of a dragonfly larva, suspended, until +sprung out. Since we are not as rigidly and instinctively stuck as the +insects, relief from our often unblessed condition may come simply +because we get a chance to look around. Freshness of act, unfailing +originality, is here, but it takes time to see. After an age of +inattention it comes like a red squirrel, which I meet unexpectedly one +raw March morning. Its whole body twitches and shakes. It jumps with +an extraordinary series of halts and starts; then, like a boy playing +Indian, it leaps behind a rock as I walk by. + +If there is any spare time in a harried world, perhaps it should be +used in cultivating habits of attention, learning how to keep open +for possibility, instead of inventing distractions that provide for +nothing. What is loosely called “nature study” requires discipline +like any other area of knowledge, and acquaintance with its subjects, +their names, their habits, their place and performance, may encourage +extremes of refinement; but it is one good way to begin. It takes you +out. It shows you what else can be done. By example it may spring you +into a new mood of action. It provides new acquaintances, showing you +life, the surprise, where there used to be a wall. + +I, as well as my children, am still learning to read. I am still making +a collection of terms, in order to attempt a rudimentary analysis of +what I find. First in importance, though, comes an admission that what +I am considering is not so strangled by human terminology that it does +not have an identity, a sacredness even, of its own. Discovery gets its +worth from what it pursues. + +I see a pitch pine with different eyes, not because I have learned +that its clusters have three needles, but because I recognize its +independent existence. I know that it has needs, and a history, that it +is not divorced from an infinity of circumstances just because I can +identify it. We do not need to be vain about our name grubbing, our +scientific nomenclature; it is only the beginning. + +When I go to the edge of a pond I have a pleasurable sense of +excitement, not only because I have been there before, finding the good +old tadpoles and water striders, but because I know that I will find +something unexplained, the same life perhaps, but in new relationships. + +There is a swarm of thin little flies dancing in the warm sunlight on a +March afternoon. They not only tell me something about the lengthening +days, but the light seems to sit differently on their wings. They are a +revelation, materializing out of a distance, hovering near. + +In the game of identification we have to admit that nature is not an +exclusively human province. Then we can be led by it, like this class +of children, boys and girls on file through the woods, exploring new +land, in expectation. + +There has been a light fall of snow, and a cold wind blows off the +tidal marshes on the north side of the woods, but a warm wind is out +and it is only half-winter. There is a cover of unmelted snow in shaded +slopes and hollows. The buds are glassy and on twigs and branches small +ice capsules reflect the light. Snow blankets the tangles of briar +where rabbits have their runs. Tiny upmounded tunnels show where mice +scuttle through the snow’s protection. Pheasant tracks are found on +the way, and then the odd, creaky, fowl-like call of a pheasant sounds +in the near distance. Several myrtle warblers are seen in a clearing +on the south side of the woods, a sheltered area bordering on a tidal +creek. In a marsh beyond the creek, which is running backwards because +of the tide, cattails stand with a half cap of snow on their brown +shako heads, on the side facing away from the sun. There is an icy +glaze on the buds of a pussy willow. We are between north and south, +winter and spring, snow and melted snow, arrested in clear parallels +of beauty, turned toward the willingness of spring. Something calls +to a slow and gentle attention that has been waiting in us. I wonder +whether it is the identification of a pheasant’s tracks, or of a +myrtle warbler, that they will remember in the future, or the special +character of this day. + +It is hard to know what children perceive or retain. Suddenness, +spontaneity, silence covers an untold number of impressions. Weeks, +months, years later, they come out with something learned that a +teacher could not have suspected. Occasionally they reveal an exactness +which is innately theirs, quite apart from a classroom. I remember a +little redheaded girl trying to tell us about a big white bird she had +seen on the Chatham shore of the Cape. All description failed until she +wagged her head back and forth in a special way, and we realized she +had seen a snowy owl. + +Then there was a boy who characterized the blue jay as being “the +loudest bird in the East,” which may have brought the jay out of the +realm of science but not accuracy. + +But we lead in to nature through names as well as our senses, and then +by familiarity with habits, size, shape, color, the order of change, +the ways of dying out and returning with plants and animals. Knowledge +is our medium, and we are obliged to question. + +What is that tree, strangely bent over along the snowy ground? A wild +cherry? What happened to it? What is the evidence? Did another tree +fall on it when it was a sapling, bend it down and force it to grow out +horizontally? Its thick trunk stretches for six feet parallel to the +ground, only a few inches above it, then turns and starts up into a +sky-opening between the thickets beside it, sending up a wild array of +branches. What else can we say about it? + +Then one boy, putting things together, hearing how the tree compensated +for its difficulties, needed light, and thrusted after it, cries out: +“Why that sounds as if the tree was alive!” That is what we have been +looking for. He is well started. + + + _Response_ + +March progresses toward its end, gradually adding to the population. +Dark-headed, deep-colored male robins tug at worms on the lawn. +Red-winged blackbirds sail low over marshes, or take stations by the +edge of a pond, with reedy cries. The purple finches sing, along +with the shrill braying of the blue jays. White-throated sparrows, +quail, jays, and partridges that have been here all winter are more +in evidence, especially on sunny days, and begin to be accompanied by +newcomers, like the grackles. Myrtle warblers flutter up into the air +and down again, catching insects. But the wind blows. It backs and +fills. The rain is cold. The turn toward spring is very gradual, hardly +perceptible at times. + +Then a few alewives, a dozen or so, come in out of salt water and show +up in Stony Brook, familiar strangers, large, pale fish weaving slowly +up through the narrow stream. It has begun to be a time of declaration. +New patterns, new arrangements are taking place, however much the +season seems to lag. + +On the evening of the twenty-sixth I hear a high, shrill sound, +whirring and spinning, suggesting proud activity, presence set free. +The spring peepers are making it known that a time has arrived, and I +take joy in the news, having failed to make any definite assurance of +it myself. Their sound embraces all this changing land, rising above +the whispered roars of the sea. + +Now the perpetrator of this chorus is a tiny tan frog with a smudged +cross or X on its back, named _Hyla Crucifer_. The male of the species +has been speaking up on behalf of spring openings for millions of +years. In that capacity it is authoritative enough. Its voice, almost +incredibly loud and shrill for an animal that is not much over an inch +long, is amplified by means of a large bubblelike pouch which acts as +a resonator. This mechanism is put to use after the animal comes out +of winter torpor, after warm rain, and as the season itself breathes +and sounds more freely. The peeper moves around with the earth itself +and makes a declaration which, it seems to me, does not deserve the +term automatic any more than the fiddling of grasshoppers in August. +Both are part of the deep and various play of the year. In any case +this specialty of voice is something of a marvel in itself. It is not +like the eyes of an owl that are so made as to make maximum use of +dim light, or the wings of a herring gull that can ride turbulent air +currents above the water, or like the fins of a fish, the sensitive +nose of a dog. The peeper’s vocal parts are not specialized for +environmental use to that degree. Their primary, specific function is +to attract the female. Mating and voice are synonymous. But perhaps we +could also say that this mating cry, this sometimes bell-like sound, is +fitted to the whole environment, that it belongs unerringly to a new +earth and a new season. It seems to bring life and place, function and +expression together. It is unequivocal. It is perfect. It speaks up +reliably on behalf of everything now springing or about to spring. + +For all their vast population in the bogs, ponds, edges, swamps, and +other wet areas of the Cape, individual spring peepers are very hard to +find. During a cool evening, as the stars begin to declare themselves, +I hear the peepers’ collective voice rising up around me, passing into +the sky. On the banks of Berry’s Hole, that deep, swampy hollow nearby, +there is a pulsing, piercing, deafening chorus. The wind suddenly blows +over in a loud torrent, but the peepers keep on. I walk farther down +and they stop; then they begin again, after I sit still for a minute +or two. The banks are wet, after a light afternoon rain, and they must +be covered by frogs, judging by the sound; but I search every bit of +ground with a flashlight and am unable to find a single one. + +A wild, moist spring wind flings around the rim of the hollow, which +is gray, dusted with fog, and in the clear opening overhead the stars +fling out and away. Water stands dark and still where the banks end. +Grass hummocks and shrubs choke the wet areas beyond. I sit for many +minutes concentrating on one area with my flashlight. The peepers’ cry +is deafening. Then at last, I see one. It jumps onto my shoes. And then +another, on a low lying branch, moving along in the light--it displaces +a third, which is toppled down into the leaves. They seem limp in +action. A peeper is minute, almost weightless in my hand. + +[Illustration] + +Nearby footsteps will silence them. They react spontaneously like +tadpoles and minnows that dart off into deep water from a pond’s +edge when you approach. Yet they are not bothered by the beam of a +flashlight. + +Such a tiny thing, this animal, this cool, moist, anonymous amphibian, +for so proud a message! I can see that a peeper’s whole body pumps as +it calls. It is like a bellows, and the vocal sac blows out like a +blister, bluish-green in the light. “Peep-peep-peep,” and the whole +night is filled with an insistent, stirring cry. No human statement +can rival this simple, triumphant mode of revelation. The earth begins +again. + + + + + _April_ + + + _Deeper News_ + +I read in the papers that spring is beginning to show its vast capacity +in the nation behind us, with tornadoes in the west, and floods to the +south. The way is being cleared with a violence. + +And here, heavy fogs invest the Cape during the early morning and at +night. On the night of the second we are lashed by a savage gale, +carrying wet snow and rain, and feel a searching, bitter dampness. +The next morning the sun comes out with promise and radiance. There +is a faint new fragrance in the air. It would have been nothing but +that--a sense of mild relief after the pressure of a storm, but for +another piece of news. At 1 A.M. the Coast Guard had received an +“incoherent” distress signal, though without exact location, from a +vessel somewhere on a twenty-five-mile stretch of shore between Cape +Cod light in Truro and Nauset light in Orleans. It was found before +dawn, an eighty-three-foot trawler, which had run aground off South +Wellfleet. Out of a crew of seven, the reports say, two are drowned, +four survived, and one is missing. + +[Illustration] + +They were returning to Boston with 38,000 pounds of fish, after +fishing west of Georges Banks. During the night, through a thick fog, +a thirty- to forty-mile-an-hour wind, high waves, and heavy rain, the +radar stopped working and the crewmen were unable to see. The “Back +Shore” bar, on which the trawler ran aground, is an old graveyard for +ships. Modern equipment has cut down greatly on losses, along with some +of the old safeguards against them. Many lighthouses are no longer +manned by lighthouse keepers and their families. Great beams of light +swing out over the dark sea and back again with inanimate, unmanned +precision. Members of Coast Guard rescue crews may no longer be men +born and bred here who know every inch of their beaches. In fact, they +are more likely to come from a different state, and to be stationed +temporarily on the Cape, so that a man hunting for a wreck may not have +too exact an idea of his location. + +During the afternoon, after I hear the news and drive to see the wreck, +a southwest wind blows over the cliffs that stand above the Wellfleet +beach, and clouds swirl up across the blue emptiness. Cars line both +sides of the road. A thin trickle of people walk along the heights, +sands held by yellow grass and purple patches of bearberry, and there +are others far down the long beach where the trawler lies, heaved over +to starboard. + +From morning news accounts and a scatter of talk the story of the +doomed ship and the rescue comes to me a little, from under its +nighttime shroud of fog and heaving waves. After the radar quit and the +vessel ran aground on the sand bar, the crew made a futile effort to +get her off. Then the radio failed. The ship was being knocked around +in the thrashing darkness. All attempts failed to put dories overboard. +And the seven men went into the pilothouse, where they stayed for some +five hours. When day broke, the tide was changing and the seas seemed +bigger than ever. The men were battered and exhausted. The trawler’s +decks were awash, and they thought she was beginning to break up. The +captain then ordered the crew over the sides, at which time the ship +was some 600 to 700 yards offshore. + +A local family, a man, his wife, and twelve-year-old daughter, +proprietors of summer cottages above the beach, were wakened at four +forty-five in the morning by two coastguardmen who had seen the wreck +and stopped in to use the phone. While one of the men drove along the +heights and trained the spotlights of his jeep on the wreck, the other, +accompanied by the family, walked down to the shore. The fog had lifted +a little and they could see white spars rocking above the water, and +what looked at first like debris, being washed back and forth against +the shore. Forming a hand-to-hand chain, the four rescuers then +managed by just standing out far enough in the icy water to pull three +men in. More Coast Guard personnel came later and rescued the fourth. +The survivors were terribly numbed by the cold. One of them had to be +forced into walking so as to save his life. “How much further?” he kept +mumbling, as he stumbled around in the sands, held up by the mother and +daughter. Later, the flesh of these survivors was found to be black +and blue from the pounding they had taken on board the ship and in the +surf, flung against the sands. + +Two other crewmen were found dead on the beach. Another local resident +saw one of them where he lay at the bottom of a ladder that reached +down the cliff: “A big man, between thirty and forty. He had coveralls +on, but no shirt.” + +His wife says: “I’ll never complain about the price of fish again!” + +There are plenty of fish in evidence, all for free, although not a +single one is taken away. The boat’s catch must have been broken into +and scattered by the surf. Every ten yards or so along the wide, +shelving beach are dead fish, lined up as if they had been placed +there--a market display, for no taste but dissolution. Gray haddock +cleaned by the fishermen’s knives. Rose fish, pinkish, orange-red, a +sunset color, with fringed fins, and enormous jellied eyes rimmed with +white, like goggles. + +A hatch cover floats loose in the water, and a pair of yellow, oiled +fisherman’s overalls lies on the sand. + +The boat, which was shoved and lifted by the seas until it now lies +a few yards off the beach, is just ahead. We curious onlookers walk +toward it in growing silence. The surf waters are breaking on the beach +beside the strong, humble craft, inactive, done, pounded down. I can +make out her name, _Paulmino_, along the bow. She is banked over hard, +and the waves, still fairly high, back and fill around the stern. They +well up, then ease away again. Where water sloshes amidships there are +tattered nets and bobbing cork floats. The steel masts stand with ropes +and stays unbroken, and the high, white pilothouse is intact, where +they spent their terrible night. + +I walk away from that scene with a question. Surely they could +have stayed on board and survived? But time is not waiting for +could-have-beens. The sea rolls by. The stars burn and roar in their +distances. Immortal death, an ending, but the source of all questions +and the answer to them, roars on too without reply. Men in their death, +or fish, or birds, are the same. They share in universal soundings that +no mortal fear escapes. + + + _April Light_ + +One evening, about nine o’clock, I walk out to listen to the peepers +again. Their chorus comes up to the hill from all the watery lows +around it, and through a fog-muffled distance I hear the scrambled +yelping of herring gulls. It means a run of alewives swimming in to +Paine’s Creek from the bay, on an incoming tide, two hours before the +turn. The gulls can get at this feast more easily when the fish are +crowded and not too far from the surface before complete darkness sets +in. When I reach the shore, curls and wisps of fog show up in the +headlights of my car. Gulls cry in alarm and fly back over the water. +There is hardly any wind. The low, bull-like tones of a foghorn sound +in the distance. But the stars shine out overhead. + +Long semicircular wavelets lap over the wide mouth of the creek where +it enters the bay, and where the channel curves inland I can hear the +fish slapping in the water as they swim in, making an occasional splash +as they rush to the surface. Out in the middle of the stream, some +twenty feet wide, I can dimly make out the head of an animal--probably +a harbor seal that has been making a foray after fish in the +channel--swimming steadily in the direction of the bay. I greet it with +a yell as its head slips by and out of sight. + +A black-crowned night heron starts up with a low harsh “Quok!” where I +startle it from its fishing stance along the water’s edge. The stars +are brilliant, the sky above the low fog and bold emptiness of the +shore is a vast cavern throbbing with light. Cold sea water, high +spring night--life around me takes its antediluvian chances. The fish +come on with a proud mission, deliberate in its age, secure in its +origins. + +Then I notice that there are stars underfoot as well. My feet strike +stars in the damp sand. Everywhere I walk I am shod with light. Now it +comes to me that these may be some light-emitting marine animals that +I have read about, a family of protozoa called noctiluca. They are +microorganisms, and although the sand gleams in my hand, they are not +to be found or seen with the naked eye. What kind of “phenomenon” is +this? At once a chemical reaction and a living thing? This illumination +from mindless lives seems to me to have an incredible vitality. When +I stamp brutally on the ground the prickly squares of light dim a +little, but nothing I do can put them out or alter their abundance. +The sea’s riches touch the shore and leave their fire. I may be in the +presence of something that is nearly indecipherable, neither matter +nor antimatter, neither the animate nor the inanimate, but a true +representative of the sun, and more than the moon, a life in light. + +There are these night lights; and the lights of day, like the newly +arrived tree swallows that shuttle across a stream dipping and diving +in the air after insects. They have lovely white bellies, backs of a +beetle’s iridescent green. + +Because there is still a tight residue of winter left in the air, the +warm days when they come seem to promise everything. They come to us +like a story to a child: “What happens next?” As I look through the +novel glassy stillness outside the house I can hear the click of a +bird’s bill as it chases a fly to the ground. It almost seems possible +to see the grass growing. + +There is a rich salt smell coming from tidal marshes, a bolder light on +their hummocks and stretches of oaten thatch. The sea breeze sounds, +making the distance stretch with music in the light’s new allowance. + +In these opening stages, spring feels to me like a bird settling on +the water, like a herring gull that drops down to the surface, spins +a graceful half circle when it lands, adjusts its wings, and settles +down to rest. Life begins to show easier, freer ways of action which it +had almost forgotten in the cold and dark. It displays itself, like the +soft red flowers that hang from the maple trees, or the mourning cloak +butterfly, come out of hibernation, stretching its wings in the yellow +sunlight of a path where I am walking. + +These are the signs of spring, the illuminations I have been waiting +for. And its fresh, cool wind, striking my face, seems to carry new +senses with it. It is beginning to be fragrant and full. It calls up +in me a new alertness along with a new contentment. But underneath all +these pleasant surfaces and scattered events, I feel the power of their +origins. For all I can find and associate with spring, the romantic, +welcome season, there are vastly more uncounted changes, unrealized +ways of reaching up and out, responding to a new range of light and +darkness. The protozoa tell me I have seen nothing yet as to fire. The +migrant herring coming in at night say this April is ageless and dark. +Everywhere around me, things deeply silent and unseen begin to share a +proximity. They move in the waters, while they shoulder the dirt below +ground. In the structure of their alliances, developed in measure and +with appropriateness, is the co-ordination of the great globe as it +spins in space. They respond to a power which not only defines the +“spring” but will transform it and send it on its way. + + + “_Frightened Away_” + +The swallows freely dip and fall and sail in high wild air, and as a +southern surprise two adult turkey vultures soar low over the land, +their wings like great flags, frayed at the tips. The cattail seeds +begin to fly. Part of April’s cool progression, the tough-leaved +Mayflowers blossom out of banks and brown leaf litter, with tiny pink +and white flowers, deep cupped, strong and sweet of scent. + +On the twenty-fifth there is a big run of alewives in the brook. It is +an event that attracts attention. Cars stop by. Small crowds gather +and walk down to see the fish. This is not as great a day as it used +to be, when salt herring counted heavily in the economic livelihood of +Cape Cod, but it brings up remnant feelings. And the fish, after all, +provide an open ceremony, even though the details of their natural or +economic history may not be known to everyone. It is a spectacle worth +leaving a car for, and might even tempt someone to leave his car for +good, suggesting new roads and means of locomotion not yet considered. + +They mass in the shallow water of the brook, with flinty gleams showing +on their backs and dorsal fins. Eyes staring, mouths gaping, turning +and wheeling, the foot-long alewives move up through the fishways, +obeying their great drive for fulfillment. Herring gulls gather above +the water course by which the fish ascend through marshes and then +fresh water to their spawning areas in the ponds. They circle overhead +in the blinding sky, like a prodigal crown. + +The alewife multitude always draws a “why” from some visitor. Their +force is so obvious and yet not quite to be explained by referring to +them as “poor fish.” Huge numbers are caught in nets where they die in +a shining, gasping, shivering mass, and then are hauled away in barrels +for the purposes of bait or cat food. Others attempt impossible rocky +barriers and die of wounds or exhaustion, and a certain percentage +have fallen prey to gulls before they arrive. They encounter enormous +hazards, and the alewives, unlike men, or as men think of themselves, +are unable to turn back. The plan that put them here seems wasteful +and even too bold for those who see life in terms of human ascendancy, +where all problems are subordinate to our conscious attempt to use the +earth and save ourselves. But there they are, back again so committedly +as to make the most self-enclosed glimpse something of the primal +energy that makes all life insist on renewal and advance. Even the +children who jump down to the water’s edge and try to flip the fish out +with their hands, treating them sometimes with extraordinary cruelty, +must feel some attachment to this force, or perhaps they feel it more +than the rest of us. + +After trying to explain the habits of alewives to a group of children +one day, I asked them why, if all the fish were taken out of the brook +every day in the week, there would be hardly any fish returning in a +few years’ time. + +I don’t excuse my lack of clarity. In any case, one boy answered: +“Because they would get so frightened they would all go away and not +come back.” + +Wrong, of course. Someone might even be tempted to cry: “Ridiculous!” +The answer to the question is that most of the alewives return to the +stream in whose headwaters they were hatched and where they grew up for +a few weeks or months of their lives before returning to salt water. +They then continue to grow in the sea, returning at sexual maturity in +three or four years’ time. So if all the spawning fish are taken out of +the brook every day in the week there would be no eggs to hatch out in +the ponds above the stream, and the population would be decimated. + +“No,” you say to the child, “you don’t understand. Let me explain this +again.” + +That the fish are “frightened” does not come into the picture at all, +aside from the facts, and it is blatant anthropomorphism to try and +read human response or attributes into a fish. Does a fish take fright? +Perhaps, although it might be more accurate to call it an alarm, or +flight reaction, an automatic nerve response inherent in the whole race. + +Trying to talk like an adult, I describe the alewives’ running in to +spawn as “slavery to the reproductive urge.” What happens to them on +the way is immaterial to this unconscious necessity. Fish that commit +suicide do not do so out of choice. + +And yet, when these fish swing away from me, as my shadow comes over +them, when they try time after time, sometimes frantically, to climb a +mound of rocks or a head of water, I wonder about being “frightened,” +or the noun “fear.” Is this spring stream of life without it? A bird +trips off a branch in sudden alarm, cries out, and then forgets, to +start in on a singing joy all over again. Birds are more emotional than +cold-blooded fish, but if fear is a protective, lifesaving reaction +inherent in a great many animals, then the fish may not be devoid of +it. They are one of the foods of the universe, and in balance with that +function, it is not just that their glands stimulate them to momentary +activity, or that they flinch before disaster, but that they express in +their bodies the wild need for freedom to act, to find, to run, to be, +that manifests itself in highly developed animals, and to some degree +in the lesser ones. They are in a sense compensating for the uses to +which they are put as a prey, or element, of universal appetite. + +The alewives will not be frightened away, but they will come back with +fear. It is not wise to be too impatient with a child. + + + + + _May_ + + + _Declarations_ + +The colder, and still relatively silent world of April is past. Warm +sunlight runs across trees, sharp shadows, water and sand, with a +penetrating radiance. The alewives now come up the inland stream day +after day. Pale, sun laden, they move against the fast-rushing current, +arousing great excitement in the gulls. The big white and gray birds +hover over, then dive down in a flock where the fish crowd in shallow +water on their way up. The valley is full of marauding and assemblies +and crying out as the fish keep on, rushing and weaving with the stream +flowing over their backs. + +And now the shad blow blooms. Thousands and thousands of these little +trees are laden, but lightly, with lacy white flowers, looking like +standing clouds in open woods and valleys throughout the Cape. Pink and +yellow and silvery-green colors begin to appear on the oaks. Anthers +are hanging conspicuously from the pitch pines. + +Fish, insects, plants, birds are all, if I can personify them so, in +close and obedient relationship to nature. They count on strength and +protection when they sing or flower out above the ground. They are +in confident relationship to the general being. And so they act with +confidence. They have come. They will be. They declare themselves. The +birds make the dawns sound with a silvery rain of music. On the morning +when a thrush wakes me up, its rippling and melodious peals lifting and +diving through the air, I have an incalculable urge to migrate outward +and claim new territory. Spring tells me I have not had enough. + +The shore birds appear in new flocks all the time, skimming and crying +along a once empty shore. Colorful little warblers populate the woods, +each with so mature and particular a color and set of ways. Now, I +think, they are all back from Mexico or Florida or Patagonia, to help +us not only in our geography but to extend our senses. + +Motion and change of place are a bird’s necessity. Wings insist on +flight. Yet their recognition of that part of the land or length of +shore they come to in spring seems as positive as that of any home +builder on a numbered lot. When they arrive, a large majority claim +a place with all the resources at their command. In the science of +ornithology this is called “territorialism.” Male birds, which often +arrive some days or weeks before the females, select an area of land as +a nesting site, which they defend against all intruders. Most of the +songs of spring are advertisements by male birds of the fact of land +possession. + +The towhees are more insistent and vociferous in their claiming than +most. I hear two males, both perched on low trees, perhaps a hundred +yards apart, that keep at their singing as if they had a rivalry that +would never end. Each declares. Each holds its own, as if song is an +anchor to the earth. They stop me in my tracks. A human being is a +clumsy, noisy, obstreperous animal. When I walk down a slope or through +the level fields, I find myself so involved with my own racket as to +lose all sense of what it was I set out to look for. Where is peace if +you yourself destroy it? These birds help me to command it. I stop and +listen to them, squaring off the limits they declare. + +“Air_tree_!” the towhees call, and “Tip-your-_tree_!” continually, +inexhaustibly. There is probably little point in using words like +pride, challenge, or anticipation in terms of these singers. Who in +the nonhuman world knows but they? Our music is not theirs, however +much we have borrowed from them. Still, what I catch at, and what +starts in me, is feeling. Their songs are an expression of it. The +towhees are here to establish themselves. Their future is in direct +relation to the place they have chosen for it, which may also be the +general area where they were born. Their voices measure place, a real +and powerful thing to them. Song insists. Song makes known. Song is +a self-assurance. Since this singing is done in collaboration with +the arousing, fecund world of spring, it may in its own way be true +awareness. + +In the newly unfolding regions of delicate leaves a prairie warbler +sings “Tsee-tsee-tsee-tsee-tsee-tsee” very rapidly, on an upward +crescendo. A slim little bird, with a yellow breast streaked with +black, its sharp trim beak opens wide as the notes swell out of its +throat, and it seems to send song as far as it can. I think of constant +effort, constant quick hearts. It picks up a light green caterpillar +from the oak leaves and sings as it holds it in its beak. Then the +warbler beats at the insect a little, pecks and shakes it, then +swallows it down; and goes on singing. + +An oven bird perches on the oaks and sings, with breast uplifted, tail +shaking, making a glorious effort. How could I dare say that this +bird or another down the road, which accompanies it, is only singing +something that sounds to our ears like “Teacher-teacher-teacher”? +No bird song is alike, even in members of the same species. Each +individual has its variation and seems to derive strength and pleasure +from it. And it seems to me that they not only declare their rights +and titles but are expressing something on behalf of spring. It is as +if they sang: “It is not I. It is not I” but rather, all flowering, +crossing, taking or accumulating, all growth. The song is a part of +earth. + +Then there is that bird, a member of the family of mimics, the brown +thrasher, which seems to make a mockery of the whole business. It is +a cinnamon-winged, speckled-breasted, long-tailed bird, with a long +bill and sharp, quick yellow eyes. The male thrasher is certainly as +intense and serious about the duty of staking out his territory as any +other species, but what issues loudly from his open bill seems like +the most comical sort of parody. He may not be as good a mimic as the +mocking bird--which has been known to imitate a flock of blue jays--but +he manages a wonderful take-off on the whole race of birds. He is a +master of a grab bag of trills, chatters, pips and cries, of rasps and +sweetnesses, of sudden blurts, and obvious pauses as if for effect. + +Translated into a rapid tempo of words, his song might sound like +this: “Jeremy! Jeremy! Ready here. Right here. Wide awake. Wide +awake. Chipper! Chipper! Shake a leg. Up! Up! Here’s a joker. This +way. This way.” ... an interpretation which probably makes me as +ridiculous as he intended, if he is a serious humorist. In the middle +of this exhortation I hear a comic little “Cucaracha!” or quite a good +imitation of a whippoorwill, as if he saved his more exact skills for a +casual moment. + +The thrasher may be just as conditioned in his joy and utterances as +any other bird. His variations on the general bird theme may come out +abstractly, without any attempt at parody, a limited kind of talent, +and yet when I listen to it, it seems to me that the bounds of song are +being just a bit extended. As compared with other birds, the blackpoll +warbler for example, with only a thin, high note, reminiscent of insect +sounds in the summer, the thrasher has range and repertoire. He is +vocal and conversational, even to the extent of tempting at least one +human animal into reading words and intentions into his performance; +and this, from a bird’s point of view, might mean that I was extending +my limits too. + + + _Facets of Expression_ + +I make a foolish game out of attaching words to a bird’s song. Perhaps +it is a way of trying to bring the two of us together in familiarity, +but to give nature its true respect, every song, color, and action is +its own master. Understanding, the best human means of communicating +with other lives, might be most effectively attained by keeping a +certain distance. + +That is the way I feel when I see the alert, tough little chickadees +coming up to the house and picking up tufts of hair, rope, or wool, +to use as nesting material. They set to work carding it so busily and +self-sufficiently that I am restrained from an impulse to join in and +look things over. I walk off to my own business. + +A pair of tree swallows is trying out a birdhouse, and when I stay too +long in the vicinity, they are given an extra reason for a negative +decision as to its merits and fly into the distance. This is a time not +to meddle, tease, interfere, or try to imitate what cannot be imitated. + +From that point of view the life of May, free of human embrace, seems +full of wonderful languages, still to be learned, and they are not +confined to the uses of sound. Isn’t a flower or wing or new leaf +articulate? I watch a mourning cloak butterfly that flits and floats +overhead and then lands on a bare patch of ground in the sunlight. +The broad wings fold and show their dark, woody, shadow side, with +little white circles on them, their pattern and texture a blend of +weather-beaten, drab forest floors, suggestive of niches and corners +of leaf-decaying darkness. Then the wings spread out again. They are +a light mahogany-red with shades of brown, bordered by black lines, +and on their bottom edge they are rimmed with little round dashes of +purplish blue, like small windows into the sky, and the body is green. +The butterfly’s antennae have white tips. It has fine hairs on its +back. Then, with a papery, fluttering sound, it is up with startling +quickness from the ground; just out of reach, in the frequent manner of +butterflies, as many a boy with a net has learned from hard experience. + +What can we say about the American robin that has not already been +said? All the same, I know him not. He still appears on the spring +grass like a stranger. He lands there, then pauses, holding up his head +for a long time. No worms? Then he runs off on his robin procedure, +abandoning one area for another, where he pauses rigidly again, then +cocks his head. The worm is found. This is assessable behavior. By this +stiff pausing and then tripping ahead, a robin is apparently able to +detect the slightest motion on the ground. We don’t need to look for +the emotion or consciousness of a robin beyond the actions to which +it is stimulated by the immediate need for food. Utility is all. Or +so I have been told. But the robin, like other birds, expresses its +relation to the earth in terms of a set of responses which come from a +head I know nothing about. It is an organism with much higher bodily +temperatures than ours, with a much faster heart beat, burning up +energy at a faster rate. Its experiences are entirely different. Down +there, on that bird level, what is happening? What kind of awareness +does it have, what kind of close, felt proximity to the stirring +ground, the shadows, the lightly running wind? + +Even the flowers, as if they were special custodians of those fires +of light that run through May, seem to express more than the value we +have given them. Trim little violets, white, pale blue, or lilac in +color, or pink lady’s-slippers blossom out and mark their separate +places in the sun with beautiful emphasis. Each is significant. Each +is inviolate. And, in a sense, are they not full of motion? In their +growth, their seeding, their provision for continuity and change of +place, are they not free to run away? They fly in the winds. They grow +and they fight for life. + +Tiny white chickweed flowers begin to mantle some of our barren +areas, and the plants are so quick and strong in growth, establishing +themselves as if they had too little time, that they seem to be +partners with fish that school and spawn in the sea, or nesting birds. + +All the new tumult and excitement combines in what we call spring. Each +facet of it, each life in its own right contributes originality, and +there are communications between them which surprise us--distant, true, +and unerring. I bear witness to them, without quite understanding. One +late evening on the shore, the tide pools stand out like mirrors along +dark sands. The air is cool. Light sparkles over the receding tide. +The distances there, as always, seem sparse and immeasurable. I hear a +sharp, wild cry, and then another, perhaps a quarter of a mile farther +on. Two yellowlegs, I should judge. Theirs are the only sounds, besides +the continuous breathing of the sea. Did one respond to the other? +Whether it did or not, they are linked. The curved coast line is their +orientation, and the wide evening a plane for their cries, and in the +play of spring’s advance it is a recognition, vibrant and unique. + +Perhaps we come to some such realization of the greatness of nature’s +expression in spite of ourselves. We measure natural phenomenon with +marvelous accuracy. We are always busy at it, cropping or adding names, +readjusting interpretations, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and +dividing. The miracle is still untouched. Why is the mindless flower +less than ourselves and our assessments, or the bird’s reaction less +remarkable? That which is without mind is not necessarily heedless. +Perhaps spring is a manifestation of mind; and its lives, all those +facets of motion and beauty, behave in its context as familiars. Each +responds in terms of an alliance intrinsically known, as with the birds +along their shore. + + + _Travel_ + +For all my wonder at it, spring brings me into direct and close +enjoyment. Down the distance to blue water, the young oak leaves in +delicate silvery greens and pinks, swing in the full south wind. +There is a wave of baltimore orioles. They seem to have arrived all +at once. They dive through the tree tops and chase each other, living +jubilations in orange and black, shouting out what sounds to me like: +“This is the birthday of the Lord, Oh Joy!” Then a scarlet tanager +appears, silently perching on a pink-leaved oak. It has so blinding +and brilliant a color as to make no sense in terms of camouflage, or +environmental adaptation, unless like the oriole, it is a treetop, +sun-high bird, fitted to the colors of the sun, half tropical. Now it +seems like a gift of extravagance. + +Crane flies and gnats are swarming. Moths crowd the windows at night. +The ground stirs with beetles and spiders. I watch a bumblebee digging +a tunnel. Every minute or so a tiny yellow pile of sand appears at +the surface and then tumbles down, pushed back by the bee, which half +emerges, giving a little whining buzz, like a grunt of exertion, and +then disappears down its hole again. + +Toward evening I see a red-wing blackbird on the far side of a +cranberry bog, epaulets ablaze against the low sun. It is attacking two +impervious crows sitting on a tree, who must have just made a meal of +red-wing eggs. It flies over and around them, back and forth, vainly, +hopelessly. + +A few terns, newly arrived, are courting on the sand flats beyond the +shore. With light, airy grace, a male flies above a female waiting +on the sand, offering her a silvery fish. Then they both fly up and +glide together across the blue and white reaches below them. Inland, +two iridescent tree swallows go through similar formalities. A female +perches on an oak post and the male constantly dips down and flutters +above her, barely touching, performing a kind of aerial caress. Then he +flies up and around her, with a chittering, trilling, clicking kind of +sound. She flies down and pecks at the ground. Then both of them, in +the growing darkness limber with new green and shimmering silver, wheel +low together, in wide circles against the dying sun. + +What I see, what becomes easy to see for any eyes, in the gentle month +of May, is an approach to prodigality. We are not yet bitten, dulled, +and pounded down by population, of insects or men. Blistering droughts +have not come yet, nor excessive rain; but all the component parts +of nature run ahead. Through the alternately warm and cool sweeps of +weather, there is a steady pattern of growth. This is the season of +progression, of fanning out, and as with the trees that have formed +next year’s buds, of provision for the future. The oak leaves which +are limp and tiny to begin with, develop gradually. They toughen and +mature toward their summer function of receiving and storing. They +stretch, darken, and shine, turning from tenderness to ability. So it +is with the fish hatched from the egg, or nesting birds, or the grass +in the ground. To have had a son born this month, as we did, is much in +keeping. + +Birth is now the rule. I smell a sweet salt air. White petals drop +gently to the ground. Birds, trees, and plants, life in the ground +below them, are sprung by a constructive light. To follow spring is to +make use of yourself. Join and be. Here is as much expanding energy as +the human spirit could desire. Aspiration meets its counterparts, on +all sides. If, as man says, he represents a climax of sensitivity in +the evolutionary sense, then let him now employ his consciousness for +all it is worth, and not delay. + +Spring is loud and rich in its coming, but it is exact too, with a +sustained propriety. Each life is in its place, its shade or full +light. Each, held in the general change and roaming, to its necessity. +Fragile star flowers and wind flowers bloom in the shade of a wood of +beech trees, while out on the open slopes and fields the beach plum +bushes are heavy with fat white blossoms, inviting the sun’s full +strength. + +In that valley where the alewives run, a narrow cut between low hills +once made by melt waters from a glacier, and joining fresh-water ponds +to Cape Cod Bay, there is now such a variety of life in such a variety +of places as to challenge travel in all the senses. It reaches from the +fresh-water ponds with their muddy shallows where pickerel weed begins +to put up its stalks, painted turtles sun themselves on rocks out of +the water, and sunfish make their nests along the sandy edges--from +the pond waters gently lapping and smooth surfaces skidded by the +wind--all the way through tidal marshes to the sea whose massive motion +stands beyond us. Each area, first the ponds, then the brook, as it +cascades down rocky slopes, turning as it winds through valley reaches +into a creek, and then a tidal estuary, meeting the sand flats on the +bay shore, each definite part of land or shore, has its newly active, +co-ordinated riches. In the upper end of the valley, just below the +pond outlet where fish ladders are crowded with migrating alewives, +there is a wild and loud screaming of gulls. They wheel constantly over +the stream, and crowds of them settle down on the water, quarreling +over feasts of fish. Below them, black-crowned night herons bob and +stand tall in a grove of pitch pines. When startled, they cluck and +squawk like so many women over a scandal. When one of them flies too +close to the herring gulls, it is chased away. + +Two upland plovers skim in fast, crying high. A black duck whirs +up, showing the white under its wings. The land at the edge of the +marsh is full of yellowthroats, warblers with a quick, slurred call: +“Weewiticha, weewiticha, weewiticha,” as it sounds to me, and sometimes +a softer “Chichibee, chichibee, chichibee.” I watch one of these trim +birds. It has a yellow breast and yellow head masked distinctively +with black. It lands in the leaves, whips around, flits, quick and +alert. Its colors fit with shade and sunlight as though it had +been conceived with them--a definite dash of light. In the stream, as +it winds down toward salt water, subject to the rise and fall of the +tide, small groups of alewives run quickly and persistently through +the weaving currents, heading up toward gulls and then the nets and +fishways beyond. I feel energy and motion demanding me. Seen or unseen, +a flying, starting, striding, swimming, and inviting, makes of the +present and its short lives an endlessness. + +It is low tide where the channel meets the shore. Warm, hazy air +rises over the bare landscape into an empty, chalky-blue sky. But the +wide-ribbed sands are run over lightly by gold braided waters, light +catchers full of motion, flexing and rippling. Crustaceans dart through +them. Periwinkle tracks straggle across the sands, and the empty shells +of razor clams litter the surface, along with the worm cases stuck with +shells, seaweed and grains of sand, protruding above it; and there are +black horseshoe crabs partly dug in, waiting for the tide to turn. +The three-toed tracks of shore birds are everywhere, and farther out, +through a light wind, a rushing sea sound, I can hear gulls calling +low, muttering among themselves, and the unmistakable harsh cry of a +tern. + +Sanderlings, black-bellied plovers, ruddy turnstones, are dipping up +and down, scuttling, or tripping ahead as they feed. In the distance +the turnstones, mottled black and brown, with short red legs, look a +little like quail. + +Two herring gulls are pulling hard at a sand shark, stranded by a tide, +or perhaps killed by some fishing boat when it was brought up in the +nets. They work at it furiously, tugging and tearing from both sides, +since the sand shark’s hide is like sandpaper and many times as thick +and tough. When I come up, I can see that they have not managed to +do much more than tear out some of the flesh from its head and neck. +Judging by the tracks on the sand, they must have been hauling it +around for some time. + +Far far out, I thought I saw a man digging for clams on the flats, but +after walking for half a mile in that direction, I am astonished to +see a yearling deer starting in a leisurely way toward the land. It +had probably browsed its way out, nibbling at bits of tender seaweed, +licking salt, encountering no danger in the expansive room that borders +land and sea. Now, with the motion of its long legs showing in all +detail as I have never seen them in fields or woods, the deer starts +to run slowly, with an almost loose loping. It stops, looks around +uneasily, and then the legs unlimber again, but hesitantly. It looks +suddenly in my direction; and bounds and bucks away, its legs now +working with tense speed. Through my field glasses I find a man and a +boy on the beach. Seeing them, the animal changes course, gathers more +speed, and when it reaches the shore, dashes up the sloping beach and +disappears into a green line of shrubs and low trees. + +[Illustration] + +The separations on these sand flats are vast. Where the narrow inland +water course issues out, nothing is so well defined as space. For the +variety of action here and in thousands of miles of deep water beyond, +range is the rule, and the brook leads to the sea as all things lead to +each other. Our meetings have scarcely begun. + + + + + _June_ + + + _The Garden_ + +“June, June, I beg your pardon, for walking in your garden” is a phrase +from an old song, which expresses the delicacy you might feel on +some moonlit night about treading a path through fragile shadows and +flowers, or intruding by day on their young beauty. The song expresses +it succinctly; but the fact of the matter is that the June garden is +suddenly so rich and widespread that there are no paths to walk on. +It is unavoidable. I find myself wondering how it happened--how it +happened that I now take it for granted. My small daughter asked me the +other day whether or not the trees wore leaves in the wintertime. She +was not quite sure. We have come back to fruition unawares. + +The effort has been made, the strength achieved. In the past three +months we have gone from death to birth, to unfettered growth, and +have already forgotten what a great and elaborate process it was. I +can remember--or I have it in writing (the aid to memory)--that on the +twenty-fifth of March there was a light snow in the morning, and that +the temperature was well below freezing, with strong north winds all +day. The significance of the twenty-fifth comes from its often being +used as an average date for the first sound of the spring peepers. That +day the whole idea seemed impossible. And yet they sang, two evenings +later. Of course the whole year is the scene of birth and growth. +Spring is not the sole custodian of arrival. There are flowers that +bloom in the autumn. But that was our last beginning, in immediate +terms. We have lived through what followed with only the scantiest kind +of recognition, to arrive now with a great new crowd of shapes and +sounds filling the distance, in the muscular swing of light. Flowery +grasses, wild flowers like vetch, daisies, coreopsis, buttercups, and +hundreds of others, head up, shoot forth, dance in the sun and compete +with one another for living space--part of the rush and race of life +we take for granted. The fact that we do take it for granted may be +the best proof of our deep connection with it, as with all the natural +rounds of the year. We breathe and give birth and die in terms of the +same force as these surroundings. It is less articulate with us than +realized. The new measures have a steady underlying order which pulses +in us like the tides. So I suddenly look around me and find the whole +earth peopled with motion and quantity, searching and adjustments, and +I find it familiar. + +In the warm air the land seems bound together by a whir ticked off +in the grass by field crickets, lighted at night by the slow-dancing +fireflies, intensified on the millions of new leaf surfaces, petals, +and stems, where insects alight, crawl, and eat, many races pursuing +their separate ways, aligned with thousands of life communities in +function and in act. + +June has gone green, with a staggering assumption of authority. The dry +land ferns stretch stiff and wide like fans. The huckleberry bushes are +springing with light green. The oaks heave and rise with their bounty +of fresh leaves. Meadows along the shore are green with samphire; and +marsh grasses, still low, looking close-cropped above the dark peat or +through rushing waves at high tide. + +On the lee side of a stone jetty thrusting out from the shore the +water is full of plankton. Tiny marine animals, like barnacle larvae, +copepods, baby jellyfish, are being gently carried and lifted by the +surf. They are whirled and drifted in the water as it swells and ebbs. +There is a beautiful symmetry in these fragile, transparent animals. I +notice tiny beads of air along the sides of some of the jellyfish. + +In some inland waters joined by inlets to the sea, there are massive +numbers of adult jellyfish at this time of year, pulsing slowly +through green waters, like transparent animal flowers. The riches of +the water, fresh or salt, are immeasurable. + +More and more adult alewives are returning to the sea after spawning in +ponds and lakes, running back through marsh lands filled with cattails, +wild iris, rushes, and arrowheads. Behind them they leave their +progeny, which have in fact been hatching out for the past two months, +and are gradually becoming so numerous as to interfere with the sport +of fishing. These “bait fish” feed bass, pickerel, and perch, which now +refuse to react to a mere fly or worm, having more than enough to eat. + +There are no waters, no wood or square yard of ground not sounding and +moving with new life. A wild readiness, a fluency is here. Within its +terrestrial order and confinement everything seems incalculably bold. +Now is the time to run ahead. Now, even for our special race, is the +time to take the necessary risk of new connections, new affinities. +This is a world of alliances. + +I walk through a wood of trees--which might be in Cape Cod, Japan, or +Siberia--their gray trunks spotted with dancing shadows, a naked wealth +in motion, thinking that a man might find himself for the first time +in this company, not because of would-be similarities--sap and blood, +branches and arms--but because of a context which they share. I am an +organism that can make a choice. The tree is not; nor can it suffer. +To simplify the matter too much, I am an animal. The tree is a plant. +But in the whole environment, with its intertwining events, its varying +energies, each form of life joins and takes part. In this wood, while +the wind blows across us and yellow light dances through, I think that +even a man and trees, with their vastly different responses, may be +together, players in a sunlight game. + +[Illustration] + + + _Room to Spare_ + +June is a fullness. There is no part of land and shore not imbued with +warmth and covered with manifestations of strength and capacity, but +the season moves on. It changes to new measures continually, beautiful +in substance but hard to grasp, like a flock of sanderlings swinging +and spinning in unison along the bright sands, or a school of fish. How +do they keep together? What is their communication? Even a forest of +apparently rigid trees has a coherence and order of its own, perhaps a +sensibility, since it goes through all periods of existence. Everywhere +I look there is spacing, and at the same time mutual attraction, in +rhythmic display, as though the laws of space were inherent in every +action and bound in every organism. The play of the universe is +what I sense in its living instruments, and my own, often borrowed, +interpretations stop far short of its magnitude. + +Out of the whole possible range of communication (and it seems to me to +go beyond possibility) each species embodies a special response. Its +senses react in a unique and selective way toward its surroundings. +It is true of the frog. What does it hear that we cannot? It is true +of the fish. How does it orient itself in the water? What does it +feel? What explains the sensitivity of some plants to touch? Each have +motions, and in a sense languages, of their own. + +How can I understand the hundreds of moths that crowd the screen door +at night? They have all manner of shapes. When I shine my flashlight +on them their eyes glow with an amber fire. They flutter against the +screen, and when I turn the inside light off, fly away immediately. +This is a sensitivity to light and darkness that has its parallels in +the butterflies attracted to flowers of a particular color. They are +selective in their behavior and perhaps restricted at the same time. +And yet, huddled, crawling, landing, and flying off, concentrated in +numbers as they are, they suggest a dark realm of action and context to +me. In spite of their reactions their terms are unknown. It is these +untouched areas which must attract any man who begins to be aware of +them--as though we ourselves had something in us not yet understood. +Where the mystery is, may be the reality. + +What we see, even from the outside looking in, is rhythmic performance, +not a series of static events. Balance and rhythm are the rules of +action, understood in depth by moth or fish. Each race, unknown to +the other, plays its own game, follows its own senses, and yet is in +balance with the rest of life. The rules of natural abundance are the +rules of space--not almost constant destruction and collision between +living things but obedience to their given orbits. + +Many people have the idea, perhaps because of a human fascination with +violent events, that nature is compounded of just such rigidities--dog +eat dog, or tiger eat horse--or obversely, that nothing happens at +all. Nature is either a menace or a great bore. Could I expect, going +to some pond or water hole concentrated with life to find all kinds of +mutual slaughter going on? At the edge of any small pond I see action +enough this time of year. Many tadpoles hurry off in all directions +at my footfall. I hear a bullfrog’s noble plucked bass sounding among +the pickerel weed, while dark gray catbirds cry in thickets along the +shore. A great antediluvian animal, a snapping turtle, with a fat +black shell, a thick, fat head and neck, and large lidded eyes like a +dog, climbs out of the water to lay its eggs on a sandy bank above. +Its movements are slow and massive, each leg lifted as it goes. Only +a sudden, lunging, upward snap as I tease it with a stick, shows what +quick ferocity it is capable of. In the still pond waters there are +schools of tiny, newly hatched fish, big-eyed, big-headed, with minute +pin-sized bodies, running and twitching in rhythmic solidarity. A +yellow perch runs by, and then a horned pout roves through the fry with +apparent disregard. It passes near a sunfish nest, a little round, +cleared depression on the bottom. The sunfish sallies after it in a +short dash and then returns to hover over its nest, its fringed tail +waving gently. In spite of our expectations, any aggression here is +latent rather than actual, and need, it is clear, has room and time to +spare. + +Co-ordination is intrinsic to the life of an environment, acted upon +by every predator. There will be no fight between the sunfish and the +horned pout, but the sunfish has affirmed its ancient rights to the +territory that comprises its nest. It is bold in defense of its home, +up to the point, presumably, that it goes beyond a boundary which its +feelings establish for it. I am reminded of those birds, like the +herring gulls and their “threat postures” (described by N. K. Tinbergen +in _The Herring Gull’s World_, 1954) assumed when two birds defend +their respective positions on either side of a boundary invisible to +us but strongly felt by them. In these cases a fight may never result, +because the two alternate drives of defense and aggression cancel each +other out. What the trained observer sees as an indication of what is +going on are “behavior patterns,” types of physical action that show +him what this gull communication might mean. In any case, up and down +the scale of life is force and counterforce, action and reaction, in a +balance that is understood in as many ways as there are species. + +The lusty month of June is made up of all its encounters, many of them +savage in isolation; but we may look for Roman circuses in vain. Wait +all day and no life seems to devour another. Wait all year and you +may never see the fight you are looking for. Now and then to be sure, +as with an abundance of fish and their marauding predators, you can +see savagery and greed confined, but even so the lesson is the same. +It is not killing, eating, and aggression which seem paramount but an +over-all rhythm and balance in which they are only elements. Later on, +between July and December, the young alewives hatched out this spring +in pond waters will start returning to the sea. I have often seen +them as they go down the fish ladders by which their spawning parents +came up. Perhaps through some attraction to the water’s force where it +spills down hard over the concrete rims of each pool in the ladder, +the fingerlings mass and circle before dropping back downstream. It +is here that a number of eels, some of them of large size, coil and +slither through the water, and eat large quantities of fish. Eels are +largely nocturnal in habit, but they do go through periods of feeding +by day. Sometimes they act like eating machines, methodically grabbing +one little fish after another; but the alewives continually swim over +them, unregarding. Where the fish idle in the stream below, in less +turbulent, clearer water, perfectly capable of seeing any eels lying +in wait for them, they are in no way affected, so far as I can see. +The eels themselves, lying on the stream bottom for long periods after +eating, pay no attention while the little alewives swim over them. Here +is a strange relation between enemies. + +It is perfectly true that a young alewife may not know an eel from a +stick unless it is directly attacked, being in some respects oblivious +to much of anything except the need to migrate to salt water. And +yet the point is not that they are “stupid,” but that their crowd +lives demand a cohesive rhythm, sensitive enough in action, which +is paramount to all risks they encounter. It is in fact their main +protection. They school and eat. They school and escape. They school +and perpetuate themselves. The solitary alewife is lost. These fish +move and intercommunicate in a frame of continuity to which they are +forever held. But can we call it a restriction? Its terms may be quite +invisible to us. + + + _The Binding Rain_ + +So this is, or was, Cape Cod, as June booms with fruition. The nights +throb; and on a clear one how the long frames of the stars line up +overhead! There is no end of internment, no end of use and opening out. + +It is not the place I came to, out of the city, though its shape, +like a giant curved arm, or fish hook lying out in the Atlantic, is +the same. Its oak trees have grown, even in the comparatively few +years I have lived here. The old, gray-shingled houses are still in +evidence, but there are many more new ones, seemingly temporary as this +age goes. The shores are crowded, beginning toward the end of June. +We are scrambling to take advantage of our summer economy while it +lasts, although the buzz saw sounds the year through, as well as the +chickadees, building motels, summer cottages, gas stations, houses for +the retired. Cape Cod still has a certain itinerant quality, which may +ally it to its more seagoing past. + +In my own terms the Cape is not the same. I have outlived my dependence +on its past. I go by the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century gravestones +with less interest. The “old characters” are not around to talk to any +more. I am not quite so fascinated by grown-over wagon tracks as I used +to be. Something pleasant is lost--even a blessed continuity. Still, I +have learned to look for another, which has no particular choice as to +place, joining them all. + +This is not just “natural history” I have found, unless you are also +willing to call it “natural mystery.” This is life, or death-in-life, +as well as “nature.” In any case it is bountiful, or niggardly, +relentless, terrible, but always at hand. Only walk out and see. Cape +Cod is rife with unknown lives (and what I know about its ocean waters +is not worth mentioning). Where do we begin? With a first question +perhaps. To make it is to recover from being afraid of getting or +giving the wrong answer, a step toward knowledge. + +I have not learned much about cell structure, or the delicate +co-ordination of organisms in their environment, or some of those +remarkable mechanisms that trigger action in certain plants or animals +of land and sea; but I have made that first step. + +I stand by some pond, wondering how deep it is. Everything around me +says, in comparative silence: “As deep as you make it,” and I have no +need to think my questions will delay the source that leads them on. + +The rolling energies of nature remind us of our own potentialities. +In a small country field is all existence and its hazards. Ponderous +storms, killing balances of cold and heat, great rains or droughts, +hang over the needs of its competitive inhabitants. A natural, +unimpeachable violence wipes out untold numbers, or holds them to its +order. And yet the plants and animals themselves that endure, survive, +and die prove an essential vigor in the process. It is not only a +matter of “food gathering” and “competition” for them. They fight the +winds, in rhythmic unity. They are made to face the universe, with +the universe inside them. Their motions, their changing adaptation +to circumstance, are also their great self-expenditure. Live and be +finished off, but above all live! + +This Cape Cod, this special piece of America, has its unexampled +strength and a “progress” which will not take second place to our +own. Sun and rain, the capacities of earth, the mindless ways of the +flower, the strange and short sensitivities of the insects in their +other world, the brooding sea in its ominous tidal balance held by moon +and turning globe, all this matrix of energy has its standards and its +abiding needs. + +It rains steadily as the tourists begin to drive down the Cape in ever +increasing numbers, thus abashing their spirits. Rain is a nuisance. +It keeps us in and deprives us of perpetual warmth and light. If there +were no rain? Drought is only on the surface. Water comes from pipes, +the way milk comes from refrigerator cars. + +But the rain will not be stopped. Clean, cool, straight falling, +pattering on multitudinous leaves, it insists on its own power and +propriety. There is no wind. The calm gray sky is gently, loosely +moving, but held dead center with its riches of rain. The fall is +steady and fast above the treetops, with single drops ticking off from +each waxen leaf, sliding down the pine needles to end at their tips in +brilliant crystal eyes. With a thin long seething it spits and spats +and trickles on, pausing occasionally, then putting forth again. The +water lands on the dead leaf floor under the trees, or thick beds of +needles, sliding and soaking through, making gradual displacements +between litter and soil, stirring gently, providing the life of earth +its refreshment and guaranteeing its sustenance. + +Between pond lilies and reeds the rain spatters the fresh water. It +changes the lakes and ponds as it changes the earth. The water level +moves up and down from year to year depending on the rainfall. In +a pond it will move up the rim and cover the roots of overhanging +shrubs--blueberries, alders, or swamp azaleas--then, after a year or +two, it will recede again, revealing a narrow beach. During the years +there will be continual, subtle alterations in the nature of plants +around the pond, and in the habits of the animals dependent on them. + +The rain falls through woodland bogs, and open swamps. It trickles +down bare slopes and thicket-studded valleys. It runs over incessantly +moving brooks and streams that bear it toward the sea. Its drops bounce +with silvery emphasis across the waters of the slow, gray tidal inlets. +They sound like a breath along the sands, and while arrowlike terns are +excitedly diving for fish, they pock the silver-streaked levels of the +bay, and then are lost to sight, pattering out over massive waters. + +Even and sweet the descent, calm and clean its provision. The rain +thrusts in and guarantees immediate growth. It binds the birds to +the insects to the plants, to sun and air, breaking down elements in +the soil, loosening it for billions of its travelers, making sure of +sustenance in that release. Rain sound in June, which at other seasons +may cut like a knife, is one of beatitude. I listen. I accept. It +carries me on. Out of the hollow mind of the universe what conceptions +may come in the millions and millions of years ahead? How many, in the +next spit of timelessness, will fall prey to disaster? Both calm and +calamity are in the cards. This is acceptable enough to life in nature. +And who am I to claim some vain detachment? + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes + + New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the + public domain. + + Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected. + + Illustrations have been moved nearer to the text to which they refer. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76613 *** |