Honk

I walked across the Kaw River Bridge. There was just a little water flowing over the dam – probably only hundreds of gallons a second. Several years ago, the wooden flashboards that held back the mill pond upstream of the Bowersock Hydropower Plant had been replaced with a series of massive concrete pylons and long inner tubes, the last of the four large tubes had nearly been fully inflated again after releasing the excess water from recent rains back along the Kaw River Watershed.

I paused to take a photo of the sun’s path on the water downstream. I walked on. The water under the bridge was almost the color of chocolate milk, the tops of the ripples catching the low morning sun’s rays and lightening the thin soil and water slurry.

The city around me always hums. A car would pass occasionally on the other side of the concrete barricade on the bridge at this early hour. Then I heard what sounded to me like a Canada Goose merely adding it’s honk into the growing cacophony of the day. But when I listened more closely, I thought I heard an echo. There was a honk, and then a half-beat later, one note lower, a fainter honk from the shallows below the dam.

I had by now spotted a goose standing on one of the pylons. Honking and pausing. And then a lower beat was missed. I had been mistaken. It was two geese speaking as only geese can speak. And as I stood a little longer, I heard more geese honking from near the low island of limestone boulders near the middle of the river. I couldn’t understand geese language. Perhaps humans are the ones just making noise so often. I hope I am at least partially mistaken. At least look at this bridge and the dam that humans have built. And the cars and jets that carry us from sea to shining sea. Who are we?

The earth was spinning a thousand miles an hour underneath this bridge suspending my feet above thin air and the waters of countless thunderstorms endlessly passing on the way to the Gulf of Mexico. I stepped along at my pace.

Some fishermen had lines in the water just below Bowersock North. One had hooked a fish surely contaminated with human-made chemicals. I paused again and then turned to walk home.

The geese were still calling to each other. Then the goose on the pylon stepped into the air and flapped easily down to the shallows.

Was anything important happening at the Kaw River Bridge this morning? Was I merely making up some sort of meaning out of earth and water and fire – and life. Life does seem to mean something - to more than just me.

I walked on. It was a cold north wind for May. Perhaps the sun would warm things up in a few hours.

And then I saw a large bird circling over the island. Looking closer, I saw the white head and tail feathers of a bald eagle. What was that eagle doing there? Besides the fact that humans stopped using the chemical that had been weakening the shells of eagle eggs, among other damage, saving the bald eagle from extinction,  I would have expected that eagle to be miles to the north by now. It flew with a few strokes of it broad wings across to a fully leafed out tree where eagles usually often perch in the winter on bare branches to fish in the outwash of Bowersock South.

Life is not simple. We share this planet with species that care as only they can care. And here we are.

I bought some strawberries at the farmers market and, after a few more blocks, shared a few with the baristas at the coffee shop and then, still later, with some neighbor girls getting ready for their soccer game in South Park. I probably should have bought another box. The sun was still climbing higher when I got home.