Requiem? by Sara Wright

A requiem for the seasons is an act of living remembrance for what is vanishing, be that long-cherished seasonal moments, forms of celebration that once tied us to nature’s cycles, and to more than human species – some that are going extinct.

Cheeping twittering birds awakened me at dawn. The first snow of the season cast a spell over the landscape last night and this  generous dusting brought in the wild turkeys… I wished all good morning as I scattered seed under the crabapple. A couple of very friendly individuals followed me back to the door. My little dog Coalie is spellbound. She loves these birds.

I noted turkey hieroglyphics on the doormat as I came in but otherwise took no pleasure from the white shrouded landscape. I used to love snow but because each of the seasons is warming, we are getting mixed precipitation on a regular basis beginning in mid – November. The first snow opens an icy door to winters that are dominated by continuous freeze thaws. Last year I considered myself fortunate to have been able to snowshoe as long as I did.

   The fall turkey hunt is over thankfully. Not one turkey is missing from my three groups this year. But it’s impossible to ignore other  changes. My winter birds  – chickadees, cardinals, finches, woodpeckers (except for sapsuckers who will migrate), nuthatches, juncos, a few sparrows and wild turkeys are seeking supplemental food earlier in the fall than they ever have before. The woodpeckers also climb up and down the fruit trees seeking tasty insects although my sense is that they are not finding many. Usually, once the field is cut except for the chickadees and woodpeckers, most spend time foraging well ripened seeds in the small meadow including the turkeys.

Pitiful cheeping turkey cries used to be reserved for winter. Turkeys awaken me in November before dawn, and some days all four woodpeckers  – sapsuckers, downy, pileated, and hairy- are banging on the cabin walls. After putting out the birdfeeder and scattering a little seed for the turkeys I watch as they eat and then slowly circumnavigate the house meeting the robins who are already scratching  and ruffling up all the leaves that I leave where they fall. If the sun is visible supine turkeys bask in warmth on the hill wings outspread before fading back into the forest. On days when I am doing chores outdoors turkeys lie around on moss capped hills and curled brown leaves twittering away as I pass by. The other birds come and go as if I am part of the landscape. I take enormous pleasure in bird presence because I have fewer species to watch, so I am even more appreciative of those that remain.  Most birds demonstrate creative ways to live without killing each other off.

In the woods I note masses of acorns without their hats laying on the ground. Acorn borers are for the most part absent.

Another change is that some fallen leaves are free of holes. I was even able to collect and press some leaves to make cards, something I have not been able to do for years. Between the masses of birds that have been visiting my feeder, acorns free of hats and holes, wild turkeys crying out to be fed during the time of natural abundance which used to characterize autumn suggests to me that the loss of seeds and beneficial insects is becoming more extreme.

Some of us are only too aware that insect and bird losses are escalating, but it’s one thing to know this, and another to witness the changes firsthand and then to feel what you see and question what these changes might indicate long term.

I am powerless to shift what is happening and must acknowledge that I am also part of this problem (albeit unwillingly) because I use coal powered electricity to heat my house as well as wood – I could go on here. My point is that I take full responsibility for my part in our current ecological collapse.

Without insects about which we know almost nothing the base of the food chain is broken.  What strikes me as odd is that there are also some destructive insects that are on the rise. Could this trend be nature’s way of addressing imbalances?

 ‘Climate change’ has become the convenient catchword/excuse and is routinely blamed for ecological destruction that includes the loss of birds and insects.  Just as if climate change had nothing to do with us.

 We do not hold the American people accountable. Our attachment to pesticides’ is normalized, millions of perfect leaf free green lawns and an endless round of machine power does nothing to support birds and the base of our food chain and creates disastrous amounts of CO2. In western Maine we have created a hole in the sky because we have logged so many trees.

Seasonal changes must be accepted but for me they create new questions.

I wonder how my grief and the grief of so many others who share the same edge might  motivate me? What can I do that I haven’t done before?

What does restoration look like when it begins in the deepest, darkest place in my  exhaustion, in our collective exhaustion, in the exhausted soil of the world? What practices or relationships might we develop to address such enormous problems?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but I am asking them all the same.

I close with a poem (haiku) written by Ron Moss that expresses something of the terror of the place we are living in, acknowledged or not.

earth storm an ending I can almost feel

longest night . . .
Tasmanian Tigers pace
the underworld

firestorm
the redwood coffin
safe underground

charred into bark a gaze of fire

bloodwood moon
a starving dingo paces
the rain shadow

boneyard
the dry riverbed
cracked open

ghost rainbow
something written
with faded lies

rising floodwater
house lights dim and fade
one by one

broken starfish
waves pound the beach
while children sleep

memorial service
the chant of forest ravens
unborn and undying