Instructor keeps an eye on nature
On the eve of Sept. 11 I look to the heavens and am rewarded by a thousand darting swifts. Gathering on the southward migration, thousands of Vaux’s Swifts swirl and float in the September sky above Northwest Portland’s Chapman School. In this age when the news brings voices of anger and hatred, it is reassuring to know that the pilgrimage of these small birds brought people together for a common good. It is reassuring to know that school children and adults came together to take action, to make small sacrifices for the benefit of nature. As I watch the whirling, acrobatic cloud of birds descend into the abandoned chimney, I am awed by the beauty of the birds and energized by the sight of families and couples, men and women, gathered together again to share to share in the experience and to wonder as one at the natural world. We watch mesmerized by the magnitude of the flock. We take in a collective breath as a falcon darts from the surrounding trees and snatches a meal. We cheer and clap as the light fades and the final group of birds end their day and drops, individual by individual, into the human-made old growth snag that is their roost. It is now dark, time for us to leave, too. We are individuals again ourselves, but we have shared an experience of beauty, and I can’t help believe that we all leave restored, that we all leave a little more humane.
|
