Words from Pep Chickadees, Ants & Progress

Words from Pep

Chickadees, Ants & Progress

Something across the meadow, a fleeting movement inside the brush, caught my attention.  Stepping silently back into the shadows I stood motionless waiting for my eyes to adjust. Was I being watched? By whom, what? My eyes focused, dissected the shapes, colors. Inside my chest my heart responded to the adrenalin brought on by the unknown. I felt its pulse in my neck.  All seemed natural, ordinary, as the mysterious life form remained hidden. I needed patience and slowly leaned against the birch behind me. . . . . . Two minutes, five, ten passed. A chickadee, pondering my catatonic state, darted within reach and began a monologue. Soon two colleagues appeared and this tribunal commenced deliberation as to the meaning of this human fused to the tree. . . . . . “Imagine that - a human that has ceased to thrash about in our home.” The first seemed to say. “Why isn’t it making noise or hauling off parts of our world?” Mused a second. “Don’t trust it. Don’t get too close. It might be a trap!” The third repeated over and over. At one point, to the shock and horror of the third member of the trinity, the first rushed in and snatched a deer fly from the brim of my cap, removed the wings and enjoyed a snack. To my right a downy woodpecker impatiently considered a fissure in the bark as if waiting for fast food at the drive up. . . . . . All around me the show continued. Ants in single file ascending/descending the birch I leaned against, an unfurling fiddlehead stretched skyward as if waking from a nap and there, half buried, an acorn had broken out of its case sending tender yellow root downward and slender diminutive brown stalk with two tiny leaves toward heaven. . . . . . Suddenly, the mystery was revealed. A high pitched snort came from across the way. There she was with two fawns, eye’s fixed on her. Her eyes fixed on me. A hoof abruptly striking the earth shot the little ones into the brush. She turned and with a single leap followed, tail flagging white. Only an occasional rustle and crack revealing their route. . . . . . It was the spring of  ’64. Today I visit this meadow, now covered with asphalt, to buy unessential items of vanity. There is no longer mystery here, no brother/sister creatures, no sedges, rushes, no birch. Today barren hardness surrounds me mixed with unyielding noise. I step up onto the curb as my eyes are attracted to an idyllic poster of Creator's earth and I question the folly of “progress”. 

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