Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 46

WILD COUNTRY DISPATCH

Moment
Story by Tom Reed | Illustration by L. Eslick

A

t this moment in a wet
meadow at the base of
a lodgepole mountain
by a spring tangled
with the remains of summer's
monkeyflower, a bull elk rakes the
limbs of a hapless sapling and rips
the air apart with the song of September. Miles away over mountain
and valley, a family of blue grouse
works up a ridge out of the damp
alder thicket where they spent their
night working, feeding and talking
to one another.
46 | September 2020	

At this same instant in a river as clear
as glass, a cutthroat trout flicks between
shadow and sunlight, riding water columns
as a raptor might ride thermals from the
desert floor, flitting and feeding in current
finally unbuttoned from the heat of August.
All is now in the work of elk, grouse, trout.
I am struck by the notion that full consciousness, total immersion, in the "now"
is often the property of the child. At some
point, the "nowness" of being a child turns its
eye from complete absorption in the present
to an imaginary future - from being awake
to dreaming of a beyond time. I remember the sad weight of attending school once
again, the summer over, the land yellowing
as the sun shifted south, the frogs suddenly
scarce, hummingbirds no longer at the
feeder and flowers winking out like stars in

a morning sky.
Poet Mary Oliver captured it this way in
"Just As The Calendar Began to Say Summer."
"I went out of the schoolhouse fast and
through the gardens and to the woods, and
spent all summer forgetting what I'd been
taught - two times two, and diligence, and
so forth, how to be modest and useful, and
how to succeed and so forth, machines and
oil and plastic and money and so forth. By
fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back to the chalky rooms and the
desks, to sit and remember the way the river
kept rolling its pebbles, the way the wild
wrens sang though they hadn't a penny in
the bank, the way the flowers were dressed
in nothing but light."
But soon the child's brain grows and
matures into the glory of anticipation. Sure,



Wyoming Wildlife magazine

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wyoming Wildlife magazine

Table of contents
Cover
From the director
A couple pennies
Letters to the editor
Opening shot
News
Project profiles
Ask Game and Fish
Case files
In the Field
The terrestrial extra
Elk and Elke
Earrings with info
Still in Love
Wild country dispatch
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - Cover
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - From the director
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - Table of contents
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - A couple pennies
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - Letters to the editor
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - Opening shot
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 7
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - News
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 9
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 10
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 11
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 12
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - Project profiles
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - Ask Game and Fish
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - Case files
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - In the Field
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 17
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - The terrestrial extra
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 19
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 20
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 21
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 22
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 23
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - Elk and Elke
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 25
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 26
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 27
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 28
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 29
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - Earrings with info
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 31
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 32
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 33
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 34
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 35
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 36
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 37
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - Still in Love
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 39
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 40
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 41
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 42
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 43
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 44
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 45
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - Wild country dispatch
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 47
Wyoming Wildlife magazine - 48
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