we canoed out to hog island.  it is a bird sanctuary and so we could not get out to walk around the giant rock that it actually is.  seagulls and pelicans, terns and geese congregate on this tiny island and they are protected, their habitat is protected.

each morning, each evening i stand at water’s edge and gaze out on the lake toward little hog island.  i watch as the lake changes, sometimes hourly.  i can hear the birds out on that island, the waterfowl, the screeching seagulls, cranes in the distance.  behind me, david is busy with his sketchbook, drawings passing through his hands, fodder for later paintings.  for me, standing there, lyrics pass through my mind.  i breathe slower and without paper i try to remember them, try to remember the melody that flits through, beckoning me to follow it.  i jot it all down once inside, fodder for later songs.

we walk usually every day.  sometimes in the morning, sometimes at night.  we take the same path that leads us about three miles, watching the woods as they change.  there is a place we pass, fenced in and covered with some kind of netting, a low building in the distance.  two months ago, we had no idea what it was all for.  but as time has passed, the pheasants have grown and now we can see them in the enclosed area.  they are protected.  for now.  because we understand that they soon will be released.  as soon as the dnr hunting season starts.  i stand, staring at them through the woods, through the fence and i breathe slower, tears starting.  it is hard for me to have walked this way every day now, knowing they are right there, peeping and crowing, growing, unaware.  not knowing, i imagine the worst – like ‘the hunger games‘ – release them and then chase them down.  it makes me shudder.

a bird sanctuary.  a bird farm.  the juxtaposition is like the lake – fickle and hard to understand.  one minute serene and calm and protected, the next churned up with irregular-rhythm-waves that batter the shore, dangerous and unprotected.

i wish that the pheasants were on hog island instead of around the block.

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