This is the bird that weaves the worlds of water, air and stone.
It walks into the water and out of it again.
To Dipper, these worlds are one.
Deep under the water, the earth is formed, and the sun, and the stars.
Dipper eats them all and sings. The salmon have come to lay some more.
They weave through Dipper’s tracks. You know the ones. The one Dipper lays down to lead us, if we will follow.
My companions thought I was a little silly, but Raven circled back to say hello too, after that.
The language of this land is worth learning, even in the smoke!
The most beautiful fliers prosper in the dying land. As we approach zero, we are born from it again.
Thanks for Sundays!
The ancient salmon forests of the Pacific Coast were felled long ago. Well, most of them.
Hoh
Some of the lost ones went to houses in Vancouver and Seattle. People still live in their bones. Others, though, still stand.
Ozette
Others, with long grains of clear cedar, which might have been used for fine cabinets and ceremonial screens, were turned into fenceposts, to herd humans and cattle and to hold grapes up to the sun to create jug wines, but that’s all in the past now. Now, the quail come.
Hooo- HooOOOOoooo! Don’t our forests have new life now!
All the snow and the quail and the chickadees are gone now.
They’ll be back. We’re ready!
Whee!
It’s fun to be a magpie, and as for wing-flapping? Not necessary!
~
OK, so I had my camera on the wrong setting today, but you can get the idea. Right? I hope so!
A male and three female American goldfinches stopped by the other day. The females had a go at the red orach, this lovely salad amaranth.
But who am I to complain? They seeded them by eating off the two metre-tall stalks in the fall as they passed south!
Home again!
It’s the tree swallows, hungry and flying high. Just back yesterday after a long journey.
They nest in the trees that thread through the shadows, but live in the air above the grass.
That is a very fine thing.
Blending in!
