CREEK ROAD GANG
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The Night Heron
Barbara Fryrearcopyright 2010
I could write of a spiritual journey. What it is that my body is trying to say and how I shall learn from all this and be on a higher plane when the surgery's over, or through it and on the other side.
But I keep switching between physical and spiritual. Today I think I need to just get done, so the house and Jack and the wash and all will be ready for a week from tomorrow.
Eric has been working for three days now on the sprinkler system in the back. Yesterday he cut a bunch of little volunteer trees–hackberry, mulberry and the like–and carried them out to the back woods where he is building a brush pile. He came to me, eyes wide, breathlessly saying something about a "big bird with big eyes just looking at me, about as close as I am to you!"
Trying to maintain calm in the face of Eric's excitement, I followed him, uneasy about the demands this new thing might impose. My plate was pretty full already.
There it sat, sure enough, a grayish bird with a black head, a light crown, and big sad eyes, sitting very still on a low branch so we could stare directly at it. A bird meant to live near water, a lake, swamp, or bayou. A heron of some kind. It sat so still on the small tree by the brush pile, staring with its large infinitely sad eyes over its big hooked beak. I walked to the side and saw the two crown plumes, white against the dark woods, like those water birds Granville Bruce painted when he wasn't painting the Big Bend desert.
I thought immediately of our friends the Frinks and ran back to the house to call them. Their annual vacation is used for serious birdwatching. If anyone, they would know about it. Willis said they'd be over as soon as he could get Judy out of the tub.
They came armed with Roger Torey Peterson's bird book and identified our dour visitor as a yellow-crowned night heron, mature, but small. It looked wounded, its right wing drooping, a hole in the wing which we all hoped did not go through to its body.
"In flight," the book said, "the entire foot and a short space of leg extend beyond the tail." The best scenario would be that she was flying along like that, her feet sticking out behind, when some kid winged her–literally, through the wing only. Our particular heron sat on the dead limb in stunned frightened silence, stuck in Dallas County, alone of its fellows, its life changed forever. No salt waves and marshes, no breeding, no gossip.
Judy said that from their experience it was ordinarily a difficult bird to see. It likes to nest over still water, seems to pick dark shade deep in the woods near lagoons or in trees that stand in water. Once, she said, on an island where they were birding, they were lucky enough to see a heron hunt its favorite meal in early dawn in a gray mist of rain. It was standing in shallow water, snatching small crabs and throwing them down its throat the way herons do.
Willis observed that our bird must be in its breeding season because it had long, white occipital plumes, as I had noted, only I didn't know what to call them, protruding from its nape. And I thought, no qwokking to a mate, no blue-green eggs to care for in a nest of sticks. It stood frozen and flightless like those herons caught in a limestone relief in the tomb of Ti in the Old Kingdom of Egypt.
Judy left a message with "On the Wing Again," a rescue concern, and said if nobody came or called, they'd be back before dark to take it home for the night where the coons and cats couldn't get to it. They'd give it non-chlorinated water and some live goldfish. Willis noted as they were leaving that its eyelid drooped occasionally, that it might be dying.
They came back just after seven, armed with gloves and large towels and a tall thin box. Jack wanted to go out back with them. He has always had an understanding of the bird psyche from studying his parents' parakeets. I stayed on the deck so I could answer the phone in case the bird rescue people called. It never rang. Through my pawn-shop birding glasses I watched the silent tableau against all that spring green in the evening, through a flurry of gnats, golden in the setting sun. Past pecan trees and oak to the edge of the woods. Peripherally, I could hear a child in the distance and dogs barking, unrelated to the silent scene in my lenses.
Judy dropped the white towel, moved toward the woods, leaning into it intently. Jack hung back, watching. The light fading. No sound. To see so close and to hear nothing–strange. Then Judy turned and picked up the towel and Jack swung around toward me, spreading his arms wide to signal success. The box business was masked by darkness and foliage.
Strange how with distance so foreshortened the strides they took approaching the house with their tender burden seemed like marking time in half-step. When they reached the old fence row this side of the compost by the big pecan tree they appeared to be just five feet away.
Once back on the deck, they explained that the heron had moved farther into the woods and tried to slip into the piled-up brush, but found a dead-end. Willis managed to take hold of her. She's in very good hands.
Judy hugged me on the way out and whispered good wishes to me for next week.
I wonder if the heron was any more surprised by the pellet that winged her than I was by those calcium deposits that marked the cancer cells. We were each flying along in our own directions when our courses changed. We are each surrounded by angels from whom we would rather fly.
Later, Judy talked for twenty-two minutes on our phone tape. Jack recorded the tale for me:
Willis and Judy took the heron home with them. Willis found a branch for it to stand on. That became a sort of security blanket. Meanwhile Judy fished for the four goldfish remaining in their pond. They set water before the heron after Willis tried unsuccessfully to get it to drink from a dropper. Judy introduced the fish into the water. They disappeared as soon as the Frinks weren't looking. That bird was hungry. So they went to a fishing hole they know of, but whose whereabouts they would not divulge, and found some bream. These, too, disappeared rapidly. Next morning they took the heron to a rescue place east of Dallas where a fashionable-looking woman took it, cleaned out a cage quickly, fed it crawdads. Last the Frinks saw of our bird it had a crawdad hanging from its mouth. Apparently the bullet had caught it in flight and had only penetrated the wing, below the "wrist." Had not got to the body of the bird. I find this comforting.
Jack asked about the sex of the heron. I guess that happened while they were out back where I couldn't hear them. Judy said she didn't know. Figured it was none of her business.
But I keep switching between physical and spiritual. Today I think I need to just get done, so the house and Jack and the wash and all will be ready for a week from tomorrow.
Eric has been working for three days now on the sprinkler system in the back. Yesterday he cut a bunch of little volunteer trees–hackberry, mulberry and the like–and carried them out to the back woods where he is building a brush pile. He came to me, eyes wide, breathlessly saying something about a "big bird with big eyes just looking at me, about as close as I am to you!"
Trying to maintain calm in the face of Eric's excitement, I followed him, uneasy about the demands this new thing might impose. My plate was pretty full already.
There it sat, sure enough, a grayish bird with a black head, a light crown, and big sad eyes, sitting very still on a low branch so we could stare directly at it. A bird meant to live near water, a lake, swamp, or bayou. A heron of some kind. It sat so still on the small tree by the brush pile, staring with its large infinitely sad eyes over its big hooked beak. I walked to the side and saw the two crown plumes, white against the dark woods, like those water birds Granville Bruce painted when he wasn't painting the Big Bend desert.
I thought immediately of our friends the Frinks and ran back to the house to call them. Their annual vacation is used for serious birdwatching. If anyone, they would know about it. Willis said they'd be over as soon as he could get Judy out of the tub.
They came armed with Roger Torey Peterson's bird book and identified our dour visitor as a yellow-crowned night heron, mature, but small. It looked wounded, its right wing drooping, a hole in the wing which we all hoped did not go through to its body.
"In flight," the book said, "the entire foot and a short space of leg extend beyond the tail." The best scenario would be that she was flying along like that, her feet sticking out behind, when some kid winged her–literally, through the wing only. Our particular heron sat on the dead limb in stunned frightened silence, stuck in Dallas County, alone of its fellows, its life changed forever. No salt waves and marshes, no breeding, no gossip.
Judy said that from their experience it was ordinarily a difficult bird to see. It likes to nest over still water, seems to pick dark shade deep in the woods near lagoons or in trees that stand in water. Once, she said, on an island where they were birding, they were lucky enough to see a heron hunt its favorite meal in early dawn in a gray mist of rain. It was standing in shallow water, snatching small crabs and throwing them down its throat the way herons do.
Willis observed that our bird must be in its breeding season because it had long, white occipital plumes, as I had noted, only I didn't know what to call them, protruding from its nape. And I thought, no qwokking to a mate, no blue-green eggs to care for in a nest of sticks. It stood frozen and flightless like those herons caught in a limestone relief in the tomb of Ti in the Old Kingdom of Egypt.
Judy left a message with "On the Wing Again," a rescue concern, and said if nobody came or called, they'd be back before dark to take it home for the night where the coons and cats couldn't get to it. They'd give it non-chlorinated water and some live goldfish. Willis noted as they were leaving that its eyelid drooped occasionally, that it might be dying.
They came back just after seven, armed with gloves and large towels and a tall thin box. Jack wanted to go out back with them. He has always had an understanding of the bird psyche from studying his parents' parakeets. I stayed on the deck so I could answer the phone in case the bird rescue people called. It never rang. Through my pawn-shop birding glasses I watched the silent tableau against all that spring green in the evening, through a flurry of gnats, golden in the setting sun. Past pecan trees and oak to the edge of the woods. Peripherally, I could hear a child in the distance and dogs barking, unrelated to the silent scene in my lenses.
Judy dropped the white towel, moved toward the woods, leaning into it intently. Jack hung back, watching. The light fading. No sound. To see so close and to hear nothing–strange. Then Judy turned and picked up the towel and Jack swung around toward me, spreading his arms wide to signal success. The box business was masked by darkness and foliage.
Strange how with distance so foreshortened the strides they took approaching the house with their tender burden seemed like marking time in half-step. When they reached the old fence row this side of the compost by the big pecan tree they appeared to be just five feet away.
Once back on the deck, they explained that the heron had moved farther into the woods and tried to slip into the piled-up brush, but found a dead-end. Willis managed to take hold of her. She's in very good hands.
Judy hugged me on the way out and whispered good wishes to me for next week.
I wonder if the heron was any more surprised by the pellet that winged her than I was by those calcium deposits that marked the cancer cells. We were each flying along in our own directions when our courses changed. We are each surrounded by angels from whom we would rather fly.
Later, Judy talked for twenty-two minutes on our phone tape. Jack recorded the tale for me:
Willis and Judy took the heron home with them. Willis found a branch for it to stand on. That became a sort of security blanket. Meanwhile Judy fished for the four goldfish remaining in their pond. They set water before the heron after Willis tried unsuccessfully to get it to drink from a dropper. Judy introduced the fish into the water. They disappeared as soon as the Frinks weren't looking. That bird was hungry. So they went to a fishing hole they know of, but whose whereabouts they would not divulge, and found some bream. These, too, disappeared rapidly. Next morning they took the heron to a rescue place east of Dallas where a fashionable-looking woman took it, cleaned out a cage quickly, fed it crawdads. Last the Frinks saw of our bird it had a crawdad hanging from its mouth. Apparently the bullet had caught it in flight and had only penetrated the wing, below the "wrist." Had not got to the body of the bird. I find this comforting.
Jack asked about the sex of the heron. I guess that happened while they were out back where I couldn't hear them. Judy said she didn't know. Figured it was none of her business.
*
(Journal entry two months later)–Cancer hadn't spread. No chemo. Oncologist said I had had cancer. Don't now. Lost belly button and feeling in new breast and abdomen. Can't do sit-ups. Some adjustments necessary.
Went with Frinks to Samuell's Farm east of Dallas to visit Big Eyes, our heron. Still in a cage with pins in his pinion. Still looking forlorn and flightless, but he's cared for, in a crowded room. A boy with a net was trying to recapture a young starling fluttering around the rafters.
I wished our heron as thorough a recovery as I have enjoyed, because yesterday I realized – I am well! I strolled around the farm without tiring. I look back at the forlorn being I have been in the recent past and know I am a different person now. Of course I have to drop a few persistent scabs and lose the fluids from the new breast. But I am well and strong.
Turns out the heron will not fly again, nor will I ever. But we have our uses. Old Big Eyes will help teach children the consequences of shooting at birds for fun or target practice. And I will go on writing, to what purpose I cannot tell.
Went with Frinks to Samuell's Farm east of Dallas to visit Big Eyes, our heron. Still in a cage with pins in his pinion. Still looking forlorn and flightless, but he's cared for, in a crowded room. A boy with a net was trying to recapture a young starling fluttering around the rafters.
I wished our heron as thorough a recovery as I have enjoyed, because yesterday I realized – I am well! I strolled around the farm without tiring. I look back at the forlorn being I have been in the recent past and know I am a different person now. Of course I have to drop a few persistent scabs and lose the fluids from the new breast. But I am well and strong.
Turns out the heron will not fly again, nor will I ever. But we have our uses. Old Big Eyes will help teach children the consequences of shooting at birds for fun or target practice. And I will go on writing, to what purpose I cannot tell.
* * *
Biographical Note: Barbara Fryrear’s work
has been published in Windhover, Duck Soup, CCWriter, several
issues of New Texas, The Texas Poetry Calendar and the first
issue of Wild Plum. She received the Carl Award for poetry, and
is looking for an agent for her novel about ancient Crete. She graduated
cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with honors in history from the
University of Texas in Austin in 1949. Now a Life Member of the Trinity
Writers’ Workshop, Barbara lives on an acre in Irving, Texas,
occasionally getting up from the computer to feed the feral cats and
birds, trying to keep them sorted out, and looking for her glasses. Some
day she will find time to go through her grandmother’s journals and old
family letters to which she has fallen heir. See Author Index A-K to find more of Barbara's writing.
