A Voyage Across Dreamtime
The early morning light pulls me off the bed, ushering me outside to have a tête-à-tête with myself and with the little black cat called Maya. Maya and I enjoy a moment of simple camaraderie which involves looking at and through each other, simultaneously. Quiet, furtive and observant, both of us cherish our status as shadow beings...
We stand in deep contemplation, in sync with the cashew tree and the path which winds by it. But, a deeper perception of silence coerces the eyes skyward. And, there they are, flying south, a whole colony of them. Gulls. And lo, in a flash the shadows metamorphose into light and are up There, part of the seabirds' flurried whiteness and partaking in its voyage across dreamtime.
In the unveiling of the memory, the ears catch the sound of my own heart fluttering delightfully, reminiscing the cool autumn days splashed with blotches of gold and rust. It was against such panoramic change that all winged movement took a southing tendency and the quivering of impatient pinions answered eagerly to the peremptory call. Thousands of sandhill cranes gathered at Creamer's Field in Fairbanks, Alaska to take their leave even as the residents of our small town at the last frontier thronged to wish them a safe journey and 'godspeed'. To us humans, they were symbolic of both the arrival of a much-awaited spring and the beginning of another long winter. In them we encountered our endless sunlit days and the purple twilight hours.
Photos of sandhill couples indulging in courtship dances and resultant families with freshly minted hatchlings sauntering around the refuge regularly made the front page in the daily newspaper. Inadvertently, the highlights of their short sojourn became the cadence by which we measured the rhythm of our own summers.
I remember walking the trails which zigzagged across the 1800 acres of the wildlife refuge during the annual Sandhill Crane Fest held just before their departure. Complete with nature walks, art exhibition, poetry recitals, and the excited bugling and trumpeting of our guests of honor, it was a circular celebration, a baleful yet bracing goodbye.
Their long, arduous odysseys to and fro from Fairbanks meant flying over the highest peak in the Americas. The way back to their winter homes would be a true test of strength, stamina and determination for the newcomers, the ones which had hatched and taken their maiden flight that very summer.
The squadrons cross the valley in slender, dotted chevrons, floaters on a great sapphire eyeball...
Maya the little black cat is still, following the movement of a garden lizard with something close to indifference. But then, one can never tell with cats.
P.s. October 14 is World Migratory Birds Day
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