Sunday, October 31, 2004

Friday I was driving south on Highway 395 from Davis Creek, the general-store-and-gas-pump where I receive my mail, when I noticed a flock of perhaps 50 birds soaring low over the road some distance ahead. At first glance I thought they might be cranes, but I quickly realized they were the wrong shape, and far too low to the ground. Canada geese? These birds were brighter. Snow geese, then, or swans. As I gradually gained on them, I watched them shift position, forming Vs and lazy Ws, dashed lines and occasional trigrams. The flock followed the contours of the highway below; perhaps heated air rising from the black surface assisted them in gaining altitude. It was a glorious few moments hurtling toward and then beneath them. I wish I could have paced them for a while. As I passed, I could see the birds clearly, brilliant white plumage with sharp black wing detail, and long vivid-orange bills from which were suspended softly collapsed orange pouches: they were pelicans, white pelicans, probably setting off from Goose Lake to the north. Years ago I watched what had to be a hundred of these magical creatures soar upward in a single unbroken broadening spiral off Pyramid Lake (Nevada). Such cohesion and collaboration. Such majesty. On searching now it strikes me how often the word "majesty" is used in connection with these regal birds, but it suits them so well. They are creatures of immense apparent dignity. *** Epic dream last night. A portion of it centered around the property I was forced to sell earlier this year. The new owners had moved in some of their young relatives; the only evidence of their presence was the occasional guffaw and a blue glow of video from down the upstairs hallway. A hired man had been busy cleaning up the rest of the place. As I walked around, I stumbled on heap after heap of murdered serpents. Little piles of small shiny black snakes dead or dying, lifting their heads to hiss feebly as I stepped over; masses of snake flesh, segments of hacked-apart python and boa (which looked not unlike very thick salmon fillets). I remember thinking that when I had lived there, I'd known the snakes existed under the surface of things, but felt that if I didn't disturb them I had nothing to fear, and I'd left them alone, and never saw them. I was there with the ex-Unwanted Housemate, hoping secretly to retrieve some vestiges of our belongings without attracting the new owner's notice. We shuffled quietly through the house's lower rooms, sifted through the detritus, quarreled over knick-knacks and antiques, each trying to get away with the other's things without being found out. *** The sky cleared last night and the temperature fell to below 20. Today the sun reveals itself in all its own "majesty," and the warming recovering earth beckons. See you later. 12:02:49 PM    comment []