Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Naturalist






 





You might think that with all my close observations of squirrels and rainbows and eagles and turkeys that I am some kind of naturalist. But though I regard any serious naturalist with great respect and maybe even a touch of awe, I not only have no claim to being one, but I am relieved not to be one.


In all of art and politics, religion and philosophy, in all things of man and god I am a mighty scientist, a seeker, a seer. I study, observe, theorize, and test. Look at me here. On all subjects, day after day, I am plumbing the secret depths of our hearts and tracing the bizarre machinations of our world. I stand here in testament to Dr Seuss's beautiful quote "Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple." So it is to me. This is my orchard. And the answers are ripe fruit, fecund in the sun. When it is time to write you there are ever a thousand beautiful answers to choose from, to sink my teeth into. Why not? It is all so simple. It is only the difficulty of the question I must take into account when I sit down to compose.



But nature alone defies this. A turkey sits on a wall. A cat watches me from a window sill. In careful rapture I follow in detail the flight of a butterfly. Out my bathroom window two sparrows cram grasses and plant fuzz into a joining of wires and my house. Besotted at my close view of the little birds I watch them day after day from the blind of glass. No nest, no eggs are produced by these birds, just a giant mass, a clot of packed vegetation. Out on my lawn I see a rabbit and wonder over it, charting its paths. In a lawn chair I examine the movement of clouds for an hour.



And I have absolutely no idea what's going on.



I'm not sure I really care, but I like to pretend I care.



Here's one for you Dr Seuss: Sometimes there are no questions and no answers. 


But you probably already knew that one too.








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