Carrie Link

GOING TWO BY TWO

We've got a pair of ducks that live in the neighborhood. Yea. That's right. The neighborhood. And this neighborhood is complete with ZERO bodies of water.

Still, we've got these two ducks. A male and a female, and from what I can observe, they've been hooking up for quite some time. You never see one without the other. They sit on our lawn. They sit on the meridian of grass that runs down the center of our street. Yesterday I walked by a house, and about flipped my wig when one of them honked at me as it lay like a lawn ornament, on a raised flower bed, right at eye level from me.

I do not know what is up with these ducks. I do not know why they find our neighborhood to be their preferred habitat. But here's what I do know: They are in perfect sync. Without a word, they move as a unit. Without a word they move through their day, together.

Here's something else I know: Some animals mate for life, instinctually. They don't need lawyers, prenups, custody arrangements, they just make a deal and stick with it.

What do animals know that we human animals don't?

Are we making things too complicated?

I know I am. Just like my astrology reading said, I need to stop always striving for more/better/different.

What if "this," whatever "this" is, is perfect? JUST exactly as it is supposed to be?

I made myself a new mixed CD (when I was supposed to be doing all those other things, remember?) and I'm really diggin' on it. It's a goody, if I do say so myself. One of the songs I burned onto it is this one, a Tracy Grammer favorite of mine.

WINTER WHEN HE GOES

as the sun is to the city
in the endless weeping winter
so is joy to me, and pity
when he leaves me, falsely tender
like the true love's knot we tethered
plastic ivy round the portal
for to frame the spring forever
though the blizzard took the mortal holy rose
it's always winter when he goes

as a matter of convenience
we don't speak of dying gardens
as a woman of heart and lenience
i make liberal with my pardons
i am generous with kindness
he, with smiles and exultations
though he binds his wounds in silence
i my own in practiced patience, lest he know
it's always winter when he goes

he collects the twigs and briars
i stack them up for fire
but it's chilly for the burning

he slumbers in the straw
i hold out for the thaw
but the seasons won't be turning

as I'm writing you this letter
the bluestem's runnin riot
the daisies break their fetters
and the bees will not lay quiet
if you find him where he's dancin
with his lover or his jailer
say in april's splendid mansion
i lay broken by his trailer in the snow
it's always winter when he goes

© 1999 Dave Carter / Dave Carter Music (BMI) administered by Tracy Grammer Music

I think there are really good, critical, crucial reasons for leaving. What is on my mind these days is the coming back, the whys and whens of that, the ifs or nots. The blurry, messy, enough/good/same that is the flip side of my more/better/different personality.

What do animals know that I don't?

A friend popped in with an e-mail when I was writing this (no accidents). He wrote, "Did you know that the loggerhead sea turtle has the amazing ability to navigate across thousands of miles of ocean and return to the exact beach of their birth?"

When I replied that no, I did not know that, and asked how in the heck he did, his answer was that he reads about animals, because he is fascinated by what animals do by instinct, that humans require technology to accomplish.

What if we have instincts that are just as strong, true and powerful as the loggerhead sea turtle, but we "know" too much? What if what we are called to do is just being drowned out by all the loud voices on the outside? Or, sometimes the loudest, but not the most helpful voice, that of our own mind?