Beautiful is the art from the Tallgrass Prairie.
The Flint Hills and the Konza Prairie, butting up against the Osage Questas to the east, are magnificent in displays of nature's extreme cycles. Periodic starkness brings into high relief elements of presence, entanglement, and life. The Prairie - wildly necklaced about by the rich Flint Hills - is the place for artists...and cameras...and charcoals...and paints...
from
the most graceful, beautiful mated Deer Pair in soybeans (HERE)
click on pics to view large
who came to check out the apple, peach, and apricot trees in early spring and wandered peacefully around the yard for 15 minutes,
to
Woodchucks, one of whom
came in late winter and is now a family of four who love cold carrots and my mustard greens-- eating apples (HERE), and
playing on the woodpile HERE
from
ethereal butterflies (e.g., HERE and HERE and moreHERE)
Last night i killed a big brown recluse spider in the bathroom. I didn't want to, but my fear still exists. Perfect love which drives out fear is an ongoing endeavor.
Last night, up late reading the political blogs, i squeaked as a mouse scampered in from the kitchen--it screeched in its tracks as it saw me sitting up in bed--and made a sharp right turn into a pile of sheets. Later in the deep dark of early morning, my Konza Prairie Dog sounded like she was in playheaven, pouncing and murmering with glee as she moved the mouse along in its journey through The Cycle.
The death of a crow in the yard, a wounded skunk, a passing wildcat wounded by a bullet, an enourmous disemboweled rat given as a gift by a member of the Thunderpaws Tribe of cats...
Death. It is not the death that hurts, but the moments of violence, confusion, pain and fear that preceed.
Earlier in the day
a hawk had descended in hungry fury on the woodpile, resulting in a scattering of birds but perhaps one less squirrel...
There are cycles in everything.
A woodpecker and a sparrow were pecking and arguing over a seedcake yesterday morning. Back and forth they picked and pecked and peeped-- all while NOT eating. Suddenly, a hummingbird came close and just hovered around both of them. This is three feet from the front porch. Usually the hummers stay 15-25 feet out, near the nectar feeders and the flowers.
The hummingbird came within 3-4 inches of each bird, just humming with interest, for about 20 seconds.
The tiny weightless hummingbird whispered away.
The sparrow and the woodpecker quietly began to eat.
A song to listen to while hiking in the Flint Hills: HERE
Boy, that was one
beautiful Roo. He had it in all the right places: an enormous bouquet of long,
iridescent tail feathers, shimmering deep pine green in sun or shade; powerful
reptilian feet, silky like a snake to touch but as agile and hard-hitting as
any featherweight boxer; the brightest ruby red eyes, fierce eyes that could
see your thoughts, eyes that dared you not to get out of his way. His deep red wattles[1], swinging heavily under
his powerful granite beak, matched his erect cockscomb above and must have certainly
attracted the attention of the hens.
I say “the hens”, but
should correct myself and say his
hens; for they were his—he knew it, they knew it, and I learned it—the hard
way. It was, apparently, not my job to manage the hens. Whenever I tried—e.g., attempting to give all the girls
an equal chance at tasty tidbits of ham or cheese (or oddly, anything that in
hindsight would have been delicious in an omelet)—the Roo would let me know I
had overstepped. His head would jerk; his eyes glittered wildly as he rushed me
before I even had time to raise up from setting out my seven equally
proportioned saucers of treats. Fact is, his Best Girl was to first have all
she wanted of the goodies I laid out—and only then were all the others to step
up for a taste.
“There is a pecking order
here! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get out of my boudoir!”
Well, that’s anthropomorphizing. What he actually said was more like, “Bam!
Sock! Pow!” His commanding wings would raise him a foot or two into the air as
he boxed me with his giant dinosaur feet, faster than any gym partner, more
accurate than Ali, if I dare say so. On days when I was wearing my sturdy field
boots, I could hold my leg out and let him go for it. His amazing hind legs
seemed to move with the speed of a propeller, and the air would ring as if a
premium kangaroo leather speed punching bag was being schooled by Manny Pacquiao.
So I learned to let the
Mighty Roo do his job in managing the small lovely flock of egg layers, and
keep to my part, which seemed less fun than his and frequently involved paying
for things and cleaning up caca.
And, truth be told, he
was amazing at his job. He roused everyone at daybreak. He showed the girls the
best spots for free ranging: the sweet green henbit in the spring sun
and the
soft Kentucky bluegrass in the summer shade. He scared away the crows and rabbits
and squirrels from the ground around the birdfeeders, saving those tasties for
his Best Girl. He out-crowed a rooster living a mile away, whom he would never
get to box, their boasts echoing back and forth across the river on windless
days. He sat next to his humans on the bench, permitting himself to be stroked,
then insisting that he be stroked, his beak to be tapped, his chest to be
ruffled. Each evening the Perfect Roo nudged the sweet hens back into the cozy coop
to watch the lengthening orange shadows from the safety of the little barn, away
from the bald eagles flying overhead, returning to their river nests.
There are many
similarities between a man who lives on a small farm in the country and a rooster.
Being Master of One’s Domain can mean many things—crowing when one feels good,
strutting about on a good day (knowing the Top Hen is content), looking so very
fine as the early eastern glow steadily turns into the psychedelia of sunrise
on a farm.
A man and a rooster look for food and share it with their girls. A
man and a roo single out among the admiring flock the one with the fluffiest
feathers, the roundest rump, the silkiest cluckings, and let her know she is
his Best Girl. The simple coming and going of light and dark sets the day’s routine
of work and play.A man who manages a
little piece of land has been given, and is giving, a gift. He rotates with the
Earth in its slow, diurnal spinning; his feet are planted firmly in the seemingly
slower revolution through space; the steady cycles of living and dying bring
tears and laughter and are measured in seconds, in seasons, in years, in
lifetimes.
A Nice Sky MTODD fine art in the flint hills
Yet, the movements which
gift us with seasons—the gentle rotations and revolutions—are in fact not
gentle at all. The spinning speed of the Earth—1000 miles per hour! and the
orbital movement through space, at almost 70 X that—are shattering speeds—but
they stay exactly the same. The physicists tell us that since we do not feel
any acceleration or deceleration, we feel—nothing. One only feels motion if one’s
speed changes...
The Dog loosed from a
neighboring farm came into the Roo’s yard stealthily, while the air was warm
and all the living creatures were busy not feeling any movement but the gently
pulsing solar rays. The Dog did not have a good reputation, as did the Roo; he
did not have in his heart loyalty and protection, as did the Roo; he was not
motivated by hunger or family or safety or gifting, as was the Roo.
The Dog was probably
surprised to find that his enormous size and (no doubt, oft-rewarded) ferocity
did not give him the easy theft in his sights. No, the evidence left behind exposed
the repeated attempts and the persistence needed to accomplish his wicked deed;
clearly showed the merciless nature of the kidnapping and murder of the widely
beloved and most excellent Roo.
dandelions at sundown mtodd
Three scattered piles of
feathers. One here, near the house; mostly the smaller, exquisitely striped brown
and tan and cream feathers from the generous, proud chest. One there, in the
back yard—a dozen long, delicately curved tail feathers, precious like silk,
like satin, exquisite beyond words. Two dozen unbearably soft downy feathers,
like posies in palest green and white, like colossal snowflakes made of frothy
diaphanous featherdust. Gently collecting them from the ground—some covered in
saliva—just the memory now triggering hot tears streaming and actual ripping to
the human heart muscle. Finally, the porch, the sanctuary. Broken vase. Spilled
water bowls. Tattered screen. Stiff dark feathers. What good can come from
imagining? A menace appears, shoves into one’s dwelling, clambers onto chairs
and tables in lustful, blind pursuit of … Blood? Sport? The Death Moment?
So.
In the end, the Roo was
the same as he always was. He lived as he lived into the final seconds of
breath.
In those final moments,
he no longer wore his lush bouquet of iridescent pinegreen tail feathers. He no
longer felt the beautiful creamy breast of ruffled softness that gave him
warmth and us, love. In the end, he was brazenly, heartlessly stripped of all
that made him a thing of nature’s beauty. He stood bitten and beaten and ripped
and naked. But, in the end, he was also defiant and brave and cared not—for his girls were safely
away. The Rooster would not have been aware of his nakedness, perhaps, or of the
blood he wore, nor even of his likely end. The Beast had been enticed, and tricked. The
dishonorable beast—his thick, single-minded sin having left him forever an
object of disgrace—was no match for the Roo, doing the job, living the life he
was born to. The selfish beast was no match for the perfect Rooster’s strength
of character and sacrificial giving. The Roo had won. The Roo never changed. He
stayed exactly who he was. A Rooster with Heart.
Man, that was one
beautiful Roo. He had it in all the right places.
And in the end, the man
and the rooster differ; for Man is a mystic, and sees beyond time and the
present moment. The Rooster is buddhist and has only the now.
And whereas the Roo may
have experienced the events of his mortal wounding and death as nothing but an
instant in time--an instant majestic and astonishing in fulfillment of his
nature, to be sure, but no different than the marvelous killing of a mouse in
the henhouse or raising the sun with a spectacular crowing—to the Man and his Best Girl, the events slowed time
and stopped movement. Love—even a drop of love—can stop the movement of the
Earth. Pondering the events in time, and weaving them through the past—the
earlier love of a wobbly chick and a tiny but earnest first crowing—and into
the promised future—a grainy picture of a grand, crotchety bird with
low-swinging wattles and grandchicks galore and orange sunsetting shadows finding
them on the bench, together—the man and his woman felt the spinning, the acceleration
and deceleration of time, the shattering speed of grief.
The wounds of love, like
all grief, are a part of the spiral, the slow spiraling approach to that which
seems unapproachable… a whispering into that other, unbearable grief…we pull
back, to return later, to risk going further into the deep. The passing seasons
are the walls that the wounded bounce against, buttressed, corralled in the mask
of sanity, kept alive and standing until the searing part of the pain is gone.
Until the heart stitches itself up a bit. Until one might stand again by
oneself. Like our bodies need gravity, our souls need seasons: a strange
nourishing organic blanket teaching us the Grace of Time.
“A wattle is a fleshy caruncle hanging from
various parts of the head or neck in several groups of birds and mammals. A
caruncle is defined as 'A small, fleshy excrescence that is a normal part of an
animal's anatomy'.[1] Caruncles in birds include wattles, dewlaps, snoods and
earlobes. Wattles are generally paired structures but may occur as a single
structure when it is sometimes known as a dewlap. Wattles are frequently organs
of sexual dimorphism. In some birds, caruncles are erectile tissue and may or
may not have a feather covering.”
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