Thirsty Snakes

Walking to the river I catch a sideways glimpse of stripes in the grass. A 1.5 metre Carpet Python is lying slightly curled on the edge of the nature strip. It is dead. A victim of what I imagine is road kill. Last week it was a smallish brown tree snake that lay dead on the roadside verge.

Some time ago I read a deeply moving story by the wonderful Barry Lopez about how he was on his way to visit a friend by car. He stopped so often to bury the dead animals he found lying on the road that he arrived at his destination very very late. All day, as he drove, his journey was interupted by roadkill. He would stop the car, carefully lift the animals off the road and bury them with an apology which signifies, he says, 'an act of respect, a technique of awareness' (Lopez, 1998:114).

In an interview about his writing Lopez is asked about why he does this. Here is part of the conversation about his story 'Apologia' in his exquisite book About this Life (1998).

'You call it an act of respect or awareness. ... I've had the habit for so long I don't know where it started. It bothered me to have animals lying out there on the road and being hit repeatedly by automobile traffic. I wrote the piece that you refer to because it involves a moral dilemma. How have we gotten ourselves into this position is on my mind often, and what we can do about it. When that piece appeared, I probably got more mail about it than any other piece I ever published in Harper's. Much of the mail was from people who said, "I'm bothered by this too, and I too take animals off the road, and I'm glad to know that there's someone who does this." One reason for including that piece in the collection was the amount of passion I felt in the letters I got when it first appeared.'

Because of the drought many creatures are coming into the city and into people's gardens looking for water. The snakes may have been visiting garden ponds and other water features or are just out on the prowl as the weather has warmed substantially. On one hand I love it that there are wild creatures still living in the heart of the city, on the other I am sad that living in the city presents dangers not found in the wild. As Barry Lopez comments: 'We're an anesthetized culture. We have gotten ourselves into a situation where we're able to live with comfort around carnage.'

Lopez's words shimmer with deep understanding of the kinship between human and nature and the struggle to deal with the paradoxes embedded in this world.

The river is calling.

Reference
An Interview with Barry Lopez, 1998, KUSP, May 25, Capitola Book Cafe, http://www.capitolabookcafe.com/andrea/lopez.html
Lopez B, 1998, 'Apologia,' in About this Life: Journeys on the Threshold of Memory, New York, Random House.

Jewels on the River

Just as I step onto the trail, right there under my feet, is a tiny exquisite feather. Not quite a centimetre long, the feather is lustrous. At the quill end it's a fluffy pale grey which turns into a deep tangerine, pales into a rich orangey-yellow, bleeds into a light olive greeny-yellow and then, in miniature tufts, is transformed into a bright emerald green. A very small and precious gift from the Rainbow Lorikeet - the colours of the feather imitating its name.

Early in the day in the warmer months, the river valley is often slightly foggy. But as the sun breaks through and the light dances on the water, the river's colours begin to sparkle. Gradually the river takes on the quality and colour of its surroundings. It shifts from a dark khaki to a browny-olive then spreads to a honey earthy brown, even to delicious shades of darkish green. But when the fog lifts and the sky changes from misty greys to an intense bright blue, the river's colour changes again and reflects the beauty of blueness.

Above me, in the quiet of the river's stillness, the white Cockatoos are scruffling raucously. They seem perturbed, agitated somehow and are shrieking and screeching, intent on one particular tree. It is a narrow eucalypt about five to six metres tall, full of hollows. The Cockatoos peer closely into the openings, then they fly up and back and look deeply into the hollows again, all the while vocalising. What is in the tree hollows? And why are the birds screeching so loudly?

From White Cockatoos to glossy blueblack Ravens, the colours of the birds seem to blur among the bushes and grasses. Black and white Butcher Birds, Magpies, Mudlarks and Wagtails, silvery grey Cuckoo Skreiks, intensely coloured Pardalotes and Kingfishers, blue Wrens, red Wrens, pink and grey Galahs, multi-coloured Rosellas in intoxicating hues. And many LBBs, the little brown birds which sing so sweetly.

Then right there, sitting on a blade of bright green grass, is a beetle the colour of dazzling lapis lazuli. It's a day to relish these jewels of the river.