Call of the Wild

Late at night their mournfull call fills the night air. I am unable to read when this happens, and my cig is forgotten as I look out into the darkness. The song of the Loon rises from the lake, and something wild and free comes to life inside of me.

In a way, I hate these moments. Something about the eerie sound makes me want to run. Go north. Go west. Go somewhere that streetlights and headlights and cell phones have never seen. Hide myself in a forest of trees that have never known a chainsaw or an axe, and wash myself in streams that run free of the beer bottles and pop cans found so often further downstream.

It doesn't seem fair that this call comes to me when I am chained to a place where nothing, it seems, is clean. I yearn for the clutter of fallen trees and self-seeded wildflowers, and I see trash caught in bushes and grass. I long for the fresh smells of a pine forest or a clear lake, and instead am assaulted with the stench of car exhaust. I dream of the song of crickets and wolves and the wind whispering through trees, and I hear instead the humm of A/C units and the swish of tires on the highway.

And yet....

I am grateful, too. The Call of the Loon, the sound of the wild, reminds me that there still are a few places (precious few) where things are quiet and clean. It reminds me why I keep my corner of the world a little quieter, a little cleaner. It reminds me that there is a part of me that hasn't been numbed by the constant noise and color of "modern life". There is a space in my soul that is still clean, still fresh, still simple. I am glad.

~....and that's all I have to say about that....~