the generations

Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless

attachments, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war;

We were driving home from our morning swim and we saw how far down the mountain the snow line was this morning. At our house, a light dusting, melting quickly, but the mountain was white. And at the high point of the highway, we passed right through the snow line, big trees on either side of the road carrying snow like a gift. How lucky I feel, said John, to have lived all these years in a forest, surrounded; by trees like these. How lucky. And we both began to list the things we’ve loved about our own woods: the bears, year after year, with cubs in spring, in the crabapple in fall; the deer, delicate faces, the young ones close; weasels racing along the eaves in search of mice and 3 times in our house, so unexpected that I didn’t know what to do until I thought of a broom and chased them out through an open door; the barred owls, deep calls this time of year, and in summer, and the quick high notes of the saw-whets, like a truck backing up; loons in the small hours down on the lake, the round rising to our house like an elegy; elk at the edges of the woods, the bulls carrying the weight of their antlers with such grace;

Steller’s jays, chickadees, hummingbirds, the ones overwintering, the ones arriving with the red currant blossoms, the western tanagers, kinglets, nuthatches, pileated woodpeckers teaching their children to drill into fir; the coyotes mating each February so close to the house that we hear both voices and feel a little like eavesdroppers in a moment of deep intimacy, and then the young in late summer learning to feed on their own.

How lucky we’ve been to witness them over the decades and sometimes I wonder if they have their own observations about us: how we’ve slowed, how we’re less inclined to chase a bear out of the crabapple or ask a coyote to stay away from the house, how we are two quiet older people but how in summers there are more of us, some sitting out on the deck until late into the dark, calling the owls, listening for the coyotes beautiful songs. How lucky to have seen the generations of bears in particular, the one sitting on the lane below the crabapple, the one pausing by the door to say hello, 20 years apart.