A fine day! Sunny, in the mid 70s. Even with allergy problems, I had the windows open and took an afternoon walk made special. Seeing zoo creatures is one experience, but seeing wild creatures in my passing is a kind of special magic of the sort Native Americans seem well-versed in but we have lost. My day is always made special when I see marmosets scurrying along the banks or a handsome fox sniffing his way through corn stubble or an eagle tearing at a fish in its claws. More specifically, Saturday afternoon from my Papio Trail, I spotted a blue heron on its stilts stalking fish and watched it spear a silvery one and toss it down the way we eat raw oysters. From having seen dozens over the years--Lake Cunningham had several always--I knew how wary they are and took precautions not to frighten it. Returning, I presumed it gone, no longer where the side culvert's stream fed in, but then was elated to see it near my bank on a small spillway. It saw me and backed out of view, but I went ahead far enough to look back and watch it, a stately aristocrat, cross the rapids cascading down the cement incline. Cyclists rarely pay attention to the water, where I've seen blue teal, golden eye, two beavers, a weasel, besides other herons, in past trail walks, but a young woman, noticing my sentinel stance, asked me if I was watching "the crane," and I was happy at least one cyclist also got the gift, like being tapped on the head with Nature's magic wand.
Saturday morning I had watched Vladimir Menshov's 1980 Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, which won our Best Foreign Film Oscar the next year. I had seen it years ago but wanted to renew acquaintance, happy as I am with Netflix access to all the foreign films I crave. It's simply a look at three country girls come to the big city at 20 (1958) and then finding out what happened to them when they hit 40 (1978). The shyest had married well, her capable husband taking her into comfortable wealth, with three sons; the greediest, most scheming had gone through three husbands and still had a blue-collar job, without losing her sassy airs; the most industrious one, a pretty romantic skilled with tools, went from the factory assembly line to the managing directorship while rearing a daughter out of wedlock, finally meeting the man she'd always been looking for at the same time she met her daughter's callous absentee father, the only real complication in the storyline. My favorite part was a serene metaphorical ballad sung to a guitar during a montage of a countryside picnic of friends, so meaningful that I labored to copy it, starting, stopping, backing up the DVD. The song has the dialogue, all the questions by the woman, all the answers by the man. (As usual, I use the virgule / to represent line ends as well as the change of speakers here, because I can't make the verse form work in this format.)
What's happening in the world? / It's just winter. / Just winter, you think? / I do. I make my way as best I can/Into your homes where you're all tucked in bed. / What will follow of this? / January. / January, you think? / Yes, I do. I've been reading this little white book since I was young,/The old-fashioned primer with pictures of snow and blizzards. / What'll be the outcome? / April will dawn. / April? You're sure? / Yes, I'm sure./I definitely heard with my own ears/The sound of a reed pipe out in the meadow. / What's your conclusion? / We must go on living/And make summer dresses from light cotton. / You think we'll get a chance to put them on? / Just make them is what I say./We must be prepared,/For no matter how strong the blizzards,/their bondage is bound to come to an end./So allow me, my lady, to offer my hand/For a dance at the New Year's Ball./The moon is a silver sphere with a candle inside,/And carnival masks are all around./A waltz has begun, so give me your hand,/And 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3.
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