On the steppingstones that cross the creek your boot left tracks thin as cat whiskers. “Leave no trace,” they say. And though, one day, we will leave no trace, for now, we pack out trash and secure our gear on limbs sturdy as the saplings the beavers gnaw for their lodge. One day we will leave no trace, but even so I like to believe we will leave behind something of who we were, something of who we hoped to be.
A flower’s a labyrinth for pollinators. A sapling’s a log for a beaver. A riverbed’s home for the snowmelt. The belled flower, a beacon for the hummingbird— who jostles among uplifted stalks but never visits for long, who sips while suspended, a flurry of wings, who resists capture even by photograph—
If you have ever sewn a dress—or tried—you must be impressed with the flower who tailors her blossoms seamlessly and perfectly proportioned.
Think how the beaver articulates a shelter of wood hewn from the living branch to weave a cradle of protection.
I came to a field of flowers, seeking nourishment, like a bee. Those we love never seem to know how much we love— The bee hovers over the bee balm the way I listen to Einaudi, the way I crave you. The tree offers shade with roots deep as mother’s love. The tree shades us, her leaves, a manufacturing plant for chlorophyll but even they, powerless without the deep work of the roots. The roots never upstage the leaves, nor even the branches. More so, like the unsung toil of rootball, or heart’s muscle, so much of the work of love is hidden.
The bee is a promiscuous creature, never sampling the same blossom twice.
I walked seven miles alongside a creek. The stream ran on and on over rocks. A squirrel clambered over roots, rustling pine needles. Wild roses lifted pink goblets to the sun, rain drops shimmering on fragrant petals. Nature spared no expense. Even the short-tailed weasels popped their heads playfully from between rocks and ran in circles. I did not solve any problems for the world, not even my own. But the stream rustled: “Here I am! Here I am!” And the bird sang: “Just be!”
First, they perch on the front porch lamp. Then, they smuggle mud and twigs to lay masonry: each plucked twig, an expenditure of wings, each mud bead, stucco that trusses sprig to sprig. On tiled steps, their cup spills, the overflow of twigs that don’t fit, the clay slip of pearls that drop from beaks. Watching the nest grow, I don’t sweep discards. Each dry blade of straw is long as a tailfeather. Each clod of clay, an opaque pearl. Swooping and diving through air, the barn swallows catch insects on the wing, then scoop mud for the nest without once touching down. They are restless creatures of feather and flight. Day’s end, the barn swallows perch again on lamp and nest, and peer at me through clerestory windows. Looking within and without, in each other’s lives we see the detritus of misfit straw and misfired clay, that multiply like loaves and fishes. Yet, in each scrappy act, we see that love is restless once the work’s begun, that love meanders like a stream until its task is done.
Love is like a river. When blocked by debris it forges a new route. When it appears frozen on the surface, it moves still below the surface of the ice, swift as fins on a fish. Love is like a river. Love holds nothing back but gives all, rounds every corner. Hoard love in a Hoover dam of thirst and you damage the entire ecosystem. Yet the beaver tames the river just long enough to raise its young, then lets the river unwind. Everything depends on the river. Love is like a river. When you are hot, it soothes your ankles. When you are lost, the river says: “Follow me.” All of life, and even the earth itself, depends on the river. Because the river loves all, it nurtures both trout and blue heron. The river holds two opposing elements in its mind and resolves any conflict by giving itself over and over, drop by drop over to the hard heart of the rock, so that even bedrock, worn down by the river, is softer than the human heart. The river folds itself between a rock and the hard place of your heart—that parched watering hole— where love crafts the riverbed. Love is a river.
The axe is a mighty wedge. It can splice trees to fell logs for a home. The beaver’s tooth is a wedge. It shapes rivers. The wedge in your heart, well, let it be a ship wedge. For the ship wedge bears a ship—heavy as the grief of the Titanic—effortlessly, and then releases it at one stroke, and launches it, and sends it off to sea.
