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No one who has seen the images of destruction and heard the tales of suffering will likely ever forget them.. But while a group of men were acting in hatred, spreading violence, death, and destruction, the Earth continued to arrange her own scenes.
The day before, a neighbor had informed me of an unusual gathering of birds - about 200 assorted egrets and herons at a nearby pond. She was certain their departure was imminent. So the morning of September 11 became, for me, atypical from the start, with a motivation to join this avian assembly. It was not yet light, upon my arrival, grey tones just beginning to appear through indistinct forms that slowly materialized into leaves in the distant canopy.
Only about 15 great egrets remained. Walking a nearby hiking trail, I checked for the birds' presence, but only one great egret showed itself in flight. The first great gathering of the spectacular birds was already migrating southward.
Back home, an enormous garden spider had rewoven her large orb on the front porch. She had been there for days, wafting in the breeze on her harp, until one evening, stiff winds vibrated her dwelling, testing tensile strength, moving it six inches from its vertical center. Here she was, with renewed silk, making repairs.
From the back porch, high, excitable voices announced the arrival of goldfinch youngsters coming in to feast on thistle seeds. While watching them, my attention was drawn to the whirring wings of a female hummingbird. She hovered, tail swishing like a fish as she fed on hanging petunias and fuscia, then looped across the doorway to the impatiens. It is the only hummingbird I've spotted here in nine summers - a memorable event on what was to become a long, long morning; for then a friend called with the news of the first plane. The magic of the morning had dissolved....
But that evening, the night blooming cereus came into blossom, showering the porch with a gorgeous fragrance. She had already bloomed in early August. Yet here came two more flowers, dangling in an "L" shape from the leaf, held on by strong inner veins. The next night, two more.
The spectacle of an opening cereus is an event one does not ignore. For only a few sweet hours, the intricate centers open on extravagant blossoms that can be nine inches across. By morning, the blooms close again; they begin to droop. Within a week, the flowers shrivel and fall. In August, when cereus presented her five huge blossoms, I called in friends to witness the extravagant event. On this night of September, I could only sit with her quietly in prayer.The cereus became a symbol of life, ephemeral and beautiful; strong yet consummately fragile; momentary.
Joy held hands with a weeping heart. The challenge that evening became the challenge evermore: grappling to embrace grief without releasing wonder.
Wendell Berry | Alison Deming | William Kittredge
Richard Nelson | David W. Orr | Chet Raymo | Pattiann Rogers
Scott Russell Sanders
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