But, what's happened to our own wild lives? Are they hiding out somewhere in the shadows, in the bushes, stamped down into the leaf mold where they wait for us, mewing or floating wolf-cubbish howls into our dreams and nightmares? Waiting for us to shut down the laptop? Waiting for the moments when we look around and wonder where we've been all these years? As if we've been asleep at the wheel or in the kitchen preparing supper on automatic pilot. Waiting for the computer to load, waiting, waiting.
How long will that wolf cub have to wait?
Go outside, I tell myself. Just sit. Listen to that bird singing, "pretty, pretty, pretty." Watch the clouds swell like yeasty bread dough. You don't have to pack up and go hiking the Appalachian Trail (though that would be pretty illuminating and enriching, if not exhausting). What was the life of that mole like, the one my dog snatched from the blackberry bushes? I held the small velvet body for a long time, but it soon grew cold. I stroked its fur. So soft. Beautiful, really. Strange little creature, why is it here at all?
What does nuzzling through the soil feel like? Taste like?
That jade lizard that darts out from behind the stones of my backdoor ledge, what's his take on things? Pissed off, probably, that I disturbed him yet again, watering my morning glories. Clanging around with my watering cans. He would make a gorgeous bracelet or necklace. I could wear him to Ingle's this afternoon when I gather up more groceries.
Our days go by so fast. We're infected with timesickness.
Let me know what you see.
