My firing colleague and I have been having an ongoing conversation about how we learned things like when it's OK to cut back the daffodil greens or how we learned to identify different types of firewood. I moved to Virginia when I was thirty and marveled at other peoples' knowledge of trees and how to garden. I thought it was something you were born with. I didn't realize how easy it is to look things up and then slowly remember the shapes and names of leaves. She can identify so many bird songs. I feel as if I am just beginning to decipher this aerial language. I learned a lot as we fired together, awake in the early morning hours as each bird began its distinct call and response.
"Dragonflies were as common as sunlight
hovering in their own days
backward forward and sideways
as though they were memory
now there are grown-ups hurrying
who never saw one
and do not know what they
are not seeing"
--from"After the Dragonflies" by W. S. Merwin
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