such intensity of concentration
while looking at the sky, the grass, the trees, the sunlight, my own hands.
How wonderful it would be to be
rattlesnake alive to all things the way Master was at that moment contemplating
a dried-up leaf.
*****
A REASON TO SAVE A BIRD
Last week I mentioned Melissa's
"Wren Disaster," and said that my usual advice is to let nature take
its course when disaster strikes a nest. A couple of Newsletter readers
reminded me of a good reason to go against that advice. It is: "The
experience of saving a bird or any wild creature can be enormously rewarding to
the person who cares for it."
Carol in Tennessee wrote "I think sometimes the
joy it brings may be worth it," and she told me about a man who nursed
baby birds to health, and today can call his healed wards from the woods and
they still feed from his hands. The effect is "magical."
Leona in Missouri told about reviving a
"dead" robin her daughter Grace had brought home, and how the robin
learned to peck at the house's window for worms. Leona writes "I would say
that the exercise of saving the bird made an impression on Grace," who now
is a pediatrician working with Native Americans and others "bucking the
toughest of situations, who seem to be glad that somebody cares to at least try
to help."
Also, I don't forget that many do
not need a reason to try to save a bird. Neighbor Karen Wise, who, you may
recall, saved a vulture not long ago and her van still stinks from the
exercise, simply can't keep herself from trying to help, even when her brain
tells her it's pointless.
*****
SEEING THE SKY
At Laurel Hill I
could see a fair patch of sky above the Blackberry Field, but that was nothing
compared to the vista available here. Wednesday a line of thunderheads with
flaring white tops, billowy middles and brooding dark bases marched past. I
could hardly take my eyes from them as they rumbled, grew sky-tall and spread
their tops into classic anvil shapes. On Thursday a storm came with a white
curtain of rain that moved toward me as I planted a Sweet Olive in the field. I
could see and hear everything. The rain's white curtain inexorably coming at me
was hypnotic. I just let the chilly drops splash onto me, totally drenching me.
On Friday an even more magnificent storm came, and this time I