Blue Needle

BLUE NEEDLE

Beside the deck where I am drinking coffee, a fish jumps. Across the way, a blue needle of a bird appears on the opposite bank, stalking deliberately along, one slow step at a time. He could be counting steps, but he is staring steadily at the water. As though he has just heard “about left,” he turns, dimples the water with his bill, stands straight, shakes his feathered head, threads his way between the roots of a cypress tree, and resumes his march. When I move, he rises into the sky, curves over me, and flies away. I go inside for a second cup of coffee, come back with binoculars just as the bird’s double appears, flying upriver, wings beating, black head pointed straight east.

At this early moment of the day it is near-wondrous to picture the hours ahead as fully conscious ones, gifts as pristine as the white beach Blue Needle strides along, as mysterious as the furred caterpillar climbing my chair’s front leg toward a destiny he is not thinking of, lost as he is in the moment. What I don’t like to slip into is the unconscious part, when the brain goes numb with clerical tasks and I plod on, forcing myself to complete paperwork, slit anonymous envelopes, record information while the day drops away; it happens. Just as any friendship is forever informed by one’s initial impression, this one morning on the deck plays within the context of mornings that have gone before. The birds’ medley twists through these newly green trees, knotted with the all the dancing lights, squirrels, otters, and fish I've seen over more than ten years.

I sit on, under the delicate, white bells of the Highbush Blueberry, Vaccinium Corymbosum, surrounded by a United Nations of birds: “I told, I told you, I told you” says one and, hardly audible, an answer comes-- “Wait, wait, wait,” followed by the sharp warning of a red-tailed hawk as his shadow crosses the deck. The birds keep on, sprinkling their songs through bushes and trees.

The second fish of the day jumps, and circles within circles appear, casting mirror-like shadows onto the lowest limbs of the trees leaning out over the river. There goes Blue Needle, headed south, one step at a time. At the foot of the bank a wild dark wisteria twists its way toward a hummingbird. The river is low, maybe at about 52’, not worrisome at all (since 77' is flood stage). The relative humidity is the lowest it’s been this year; this is Eden, you understand, Eden where leaves of plants I could label pinnate, palmate, bipinnate, and tripinnate flourish between my chair and the river. One of this morning’s messengers, a small dark bird with a black bill, appears. He is unknown to me, nameless. I wish I knew his name but I can’t throw nets of words over every single aspect of Nature. And perhaps that’s a good thing.