Note from an Indiana friend: "I heard Sandhills over our house today. The way they bugle when they fly is fantastic. I remember where I first heard them (Texas coast), and Diana and I still charge out of the house every time we hear them flying over in Feb-March and Nov-Dec"
I read about the sandhill cranes this morning and it made me cry. It is devastating what is happening. I worry about the whooping cranes. Their numbers are already so low.
Another column it's hard to hit the "like" button on. We've been down to see the Sandhill Migration near Alamosa, Colorado. And we've watched them raising their young in the northern part of the state. Their majesty in the air, their wild mating antics on the ground, and the fuzzy goofiness of their chicks--it all makes you feel part of a natural cycle that dwarfs our puny human existence. With any luck they'll outlive the destructive nuisance that is homo sapiens.
Sorry to be depressing. it reminds me of something my mother said to my father after many years of marriage, "What happened to you? You used to be fun." I blame the times. Better to remember things like your visit to the Sandhill Migration.
Watching Sandhill Cranes
by William Stafford
Spirits among us have departed—friends,
relatives, neighbors: we can’t find them.
If we search and call, the sky merely waits.
Then some day here come the cranes
planing in from cloud or mist—sharp,
lonely spears, awkwardly graceful.
They reach for the land; they stalk
the ploughed fields, not letting us near,
not quite our own, not quite the world’s.
People go by and pull over to watch. They
peer and point and wonder. It is because
these travelers, these far wanderers,
plane down and yearn in a reaching
flight. They extend our life,
piercing through space to reappear
quietly, undeniably, where we are.
“Watching Sandhill Cranes” by William Stafford, from Even In Quiet Places. © Confluence Press, 1996. Reprinted with permission of the author. (buy now)
Richard, Thanks for the article and poem. Here’s another poem with a similar sense of both awe and sadness. It’s best to remain humble.
Wild Geese | Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Note from an Indiana friend: "I heard Sandhills over our house today. The way they bugle when they fly is fantastic. I remember where I first heard them (Texas coast), and Diana and I still charge out of the house every time we hear them flying over in Feb-March and Nov-Dec"
I read about the sandhill cranes this morning and it made me cry. It is devastating what is happening. I worry about the whooping cranes. Their numbers are already so low.
Another column it's hard to hit the "like" button on. We've been down to see the Sandhill Migration near Alamosa, Colorado. And we've watched them raising their young in the northern part of the state. Their majesty in the air, their wild mating antics on the ground, and the fuzzy goofiness of their chicks--it all makes you feel part of a natural cycle that dwarfs our puny human existence. With any luck they'll outlive the destructive nuisance that is homo sapiens.
Sorry to be depressing. it reminds me of something my mother said to my father after many years of marriage, "What happened to you? You used to be fun." I blame the times. Better to remember things like your visit to the Sandhill Migration.