TRUE HEAT

A busy fish today. He has jumped—a fat, plopping sound—twice in five minutes and, of course, gives me no warning beforehand so that I can see him. He disappears so quickly. And I, immersed in Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy, can only hear him. Why do fish jump?

I suspect True Heat begins today with the predicted 88 degrees and I hold out slight hope for more days like yesterday and earlier, days of sunshine and cool breezes, and low humidity. I was close enough to last year’s Bugaboo Fire that I now realize low humidity has its downside, but only an idiot could fail to appreciate these glorious green and gold days of new growth on every limb and branch along which caterpillars—yellow and orange, horned and not—creep, the cries of birds both far and near, the house of twigs hanging from the nearest palmetto frond.

I must sound like I’m on vacation, sitting here with binoculars, books, and coffee, writing it all down, even the small olive lizard who has stopped before me and marvelously inflates the orange goiter on his throat as though to warm me the hawk is coming, the river will rise, this ethereal weather will wane. Why am I writing all this down, anyway?

I describe this scene because doing so intensifies its effect. Putting it on paper mirrors the inscription of it on my brain, which is why I scribble. This is the reason I encourage others to write. Doing so brings the sharp tips of the palmetto’s fans into focus as I look more closely. It sharpens my hearing so that I know a bee approaches, though it is still out of view Here comes an interesting bird, batting its white wings, a bird with a voice like a slide guitar—more than one long note, something more complicated, bluesy.

I got interrupted, reading the Otto book. Found it pretty dense and, anyway, isn’t it possible either that everything is holy or nothing is?

Last night I saw a wild hare in the driveway, also one on the county paved road. This evening I went out onto the deck just before dark, sat down, and observed directly in my line of sight a female deer, frozen in position on the opposite side of the river. She stared at me for all of 30 seconds, then snorted and flew, springing from one place to another in leaps that took her six feet off the ground.

Now I am working on “pupa” and “chrysalis.” I am trying to find out what creature lives in the minute twig basket that dangles from the very tip of a palmetto’s frond here at the edge of the deck.


scauthen
www.sudyecauthen.com