I followed the flood path this morning near the Minnesota River. Two weeks ago the water would have reached over my head, as marked by the brown coat of silt wrapped around the trunks of the cottonwoods and encasing the buckthorn. A clear line between brown and green cut down the length of the bank. Plotting my steps through the tangle of deadwood and logs, I climbed up the trunk of a sideways silver maple. The flood waters had loosened the ball of roots, causing the green tower of bark and leaves to gently rest in the muck. After some time, I climbed down and noticed a distant rustle. Crouching on the ball of roots and dirt, I watched as a river otter slinked over and under branches and discombobulated limbs of former wooded giants. I sat, silent and still. It came closer. I watched. Closer. It cautiously approached a water-logged beam I had balanced on to get onto the tree. The otter sniffed where my feet had once planted. It looked around but could not see me. Then, it turned and wove its path back to the river. I sat thinking. Some things we can describe, some things we have words for. In fact, we know the world precisely because we are able to label its parts and explain what we observe. But in the end, I know that I am able to describe most experiences for which I actually have no words. How can this be? How can I be so precise with my words and paint a clear picture of an experience yet feel inside that it bears only a faint likeness to what actually took place? At best, my description is a representation. At best, my explanation is a kind of poetry. Take, for example, the one or two muskrats I watched at different times drifting through the water toward the bank. Just when it appeared that they would step onto land, they disappeared beneath the silky surface. Is there a word for this magic? What about the thousands of sparrows pulsing out from the trees, drifting on the sky over the marsh rushes and circling back to perch on the twigs again? Is there a word for the way the low sun strikes the thin strands of spider silk and slides back and forth on their tracks? Sometimes I cant tell the difference between the migrating streak of light and the gnats or moths. Or what about the black capped chickadees, how they spit out a clear stream of tonal threads and sew them through the draping willows overhead? Are there words for the foraging deer, cocking its ears along every radius, planting each hoof as if it meant to grow itself out of the ground again and again? Can we find an adequate label for the robin, when it hops through the forest duff, stops, hops a few feet, stops again and flicks it wings? It all seems simple enough, easy enough to describe--even scientific. But do these things have words for themselves? Does the robin know its name? Can the otter describe its movements? Does the sun talk about its light? My experience is my own and I talk about it sensibly enough, but these are only my words. In the watching, in the presence of all these other things, I know that I too am on the threshold, at the doors of a wordless world.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 18:02:18 +0000
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