Words from Pep Only Love

Words from Pep

Only Love

For four days he stayed watching, vigilantly waiting for a sign, protecting her body until its spirit might return. For four days he had eaten nothing, considering his beloved’s silence. She was his life, all his life. They had traveled tens of thousands of miles over two decades together. This was her last journey south. Here in the Upper Mississippi Wildlife Refuge on the western Wisconsin border her strength gave out. . . . . . There were previous brushes with death; the sharp crack of guns, near night collisions with tower cables, several battles with fox and mink, reckless, aggressive boats. Once an entanglement with a steel trap had snapped off a third of her webbed foot. . . . . . This fall’s migration had been delightfully beautiful. With others they departed Solon Springs under full moon and for 200 miles followed the silver ribbon below them as the Namekagon and then the Saint Croix flowed into the Mississippi. It was during that first week she began falling behind as the swift southward pointing chevron in the sky fought the predominant west winds. His devotion drew him back from the flock to encourage her until finally together they lost sight of friends and settled on this sand bar near Trempealeau lock number six. . . . . . It was here, in my canoe heading north, that I first saw him standing guard as she rested her head and body against a beached log. Respecting their space and last moments together I paddled out into the current and lodged myself upstream on an old snag. It was clear her final hours were upon them. To honor this sacred scene and the passing of life, I offered tobacco to Gichi Manidoo as is the way of this land. . . . . . Eventually the sun settled behind Minnesota hills leaving an amber sky as I left the snag and paddled north to find camp. Behind me, retreating in the distance, I heard his call rising, pleading her spirit’s return. . . . . . For the next four days my canoe glided through floating fall leaves as life meandered toward winter’s great sleep. Muskrat houses were ready for the cold. Young eagles, already the size of their parents, practiced fishing techniques and hyperactive flocks of mallards, pintail and teal dabbled and dived, storing up energy for their southward journey. Upon my return riding that ceaseless slope toward the Gulf on the back of Old Man River I neared the holy spot of four days previous. There he was. There her body lay resting against the stranded log. I set my dripping paddle across the gunwales and drifted closer. He lifted his head and called in my direction as if declaring, “She has left and waits for me.” With this he ambled down the beach into dark water. Spreading his wings he ran across the surface and with several “honks” became airborne lovingly chasing her spirit. . . . . . In the advancing current of our individual and collective histories it is ultimately only love that calls to us and which we carry with us into the sky.

www.theteacherwithin.com

--
ONE WORLD  -  ONE FAMILY OF MAN  -  ONE CREATOR OF ALL