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| The Big Dipper almost as I saw it (courtesy of the internet) |
When we moved our family from Detroit’s
streetlights to a country road in February 1989, we learned the phrase, “We’ll
keep a light on for you.”
Under a new moon, we
couldn’t find our way to our neighbor’s house on the corner without their lights
to guide us. Beyond the beam of our porch lamps, we couldn’t see our hands before
our face.
Come
springtime, our little women, ages 19, 14, and 12, sat on their bedroom floor
in the evening, looking into the black void beyond an open window. A heinous scream
shivered through me.
Terrified eyes
turned to me. “Mom, what’s that awful sound?” they asked.
“I don’t know.
I’ve never heard it before.”
A
neighbor down the road later said, “Oh, that’s a rabbit cyrin’ out ‘cause a
coyote’s after it.”
“Coyotes?” I
asked, appalled at the severe code of the food chain.
He laughed.
“Welcome to the country!”
Within two growing
seasons of rabbit-nibbled perennials and tree saplings, I better understood God’s
wisdom and began keeping tomcats. First P.J., then Mo, short for Mozart, a
musical, fierce feline. Mo hunted and consumed my number one garden pest with
impunity.
I’ve learned to
protect the perimeter of our vegetable garden with an eight foot deer-proof
fence and chicken wire at the base to deter hopping critters. Still, I mend
that fence annually, gnawed by another generation of Peter Rabbit.
The other night
when I took our grand-dog Lily out on her leash, a cottontail skittered into
the road’s windrow. Thankfully, Lily didn’t see or scent the creature.
Rather, she stood facing west under a black,
starlit sky, her Labrador nose the only muscle moving on her sleek body.
Deer.
We couldn’t see
them on the other side of the valley, but Lily didn’t budge. She growled low
and long. I griped her leash and turned her toward the perennial island.
Above the garden’s
crabapple tree, the Big Dipper hung upside down, poised on the end star of the
ladle! The bowl poured northward. I gazed skyward in the silent, cold
atmosphere, amazed to see the seven stars in this position as Earth rotated within
the heavens.
After a good
night’s rest under the Big Dipper, Lily and I returned to the same place
outside our front door the following morning. Dim rays of dawn glistened on the
frost-covered lawn and leaves.
Lily sniffed while
one by one, stems of heart-shaped redbud leaves detached from branches and fell
upon a cushion of papery leaves with a soft sound of finality. Leaf by leaf,
they offered up their last breath.
In the lifetime of
this lovely tree, I’d never witnessed this sacred farewell. I have Lily to
thank for her perfect potty timing.
Dear Reader, if I
lived a thousand years, I think it a fraction of time to adequately partake in a
small portion of the changing seasons.
Of one thing I am
confident. My loving God will always keep a light on in the darkness.
