Yesterday, our trees were still bright with color, even some red appeared, rare this year, mostly on the sumacs and not the maples. A brisk wind caromed through the valley - east to west, west to east, south to north, north to south. Came morning the trees were bare. Mostly, the maples stayed yellow this year instead of turning red as they do normally. Too much rain, no frost is what the weather pundits up here say. The bare trees, I must admit, fascinate me more than the others. Certainly, the autumn colors are exquisite, and, come summer, full grown trees proudly puff out their great, green chests and take in the sun. So, there is beauty, and there is pride, but is there mystery? To gaze on a winter forest with an endless array of bare trees and twisted limbs - on and on they go on forever - and they may well be there forever. Eternity? Got a better example?
Winter has been stalking us for weeks. I am insulating windows and caulking cracks. Generators are charged, more wood is on the way, a tank filled with oil, lanterns in every room. Get out the Under Armor, fleece, flannel, and cleats. At least, the tics will hibernate, and there won't be any tiny pests dive bombing your inner ear.
Right now, nearing November, it seems quiet out there, but we are ready - as if any of us are truly ready for the next six months of snow and cold. And yet. Have you ever seen the full moon over a bed of fresh snow? The quiet beauty lowers one's blood pressure to the point where one can put one's feet up on one's desk and simply stare out the window. No guilt. No worries. No fear. No nothin'. As the great Jackie Gleason would say, "How sweet it is!"
There is a rub. This time of year things are unpredictable. A two hundred pound stag with a ten point rack can suddenly stampede out of the brush and total your car. It happened to me on Rte. 28 at night driving home. All I remember seeing were antlers aligned with the hood ornament. That's all. Antlers. Big, thick beams. Whump! Babe Ruth smacking a mattress with his Louisville Slugger. Bumper to solid flesh. A direct hit. A jolt from nowhere that totaled my car and luckily didn't kill me. The power and placement of that hit sent that deer flying back over the roof. I never saw it alive. Normally, things look smaller in death, but not this bruiser. He was a monster (trophi di tutti trophi) one rarely seen and deeply desired, but he simply could not keep it in his pants, and it killed him.
This means there is a great deal of death around here now. I don't mean hunting season where, agree with the activity or not, what is taken by locals is not wasted. The local hunters enter woods they've known since childhood with a great deal of knowledge, respect, and common sense. I'm talking about roadkill, an ugly word, loaded with disrespect and disdain for what was once a living, breathing creature of grace and beauty, too many of them beside roads that only a few years ago saw blissfully little traffic and now see too much, thanks to our valley being labelled "a destination place" in expensive magazines. More often you don't see the torn flesh, just the body lying there.You are not close enough and you are not likely to stop long enough to see the glazed eyes, the limp tongue. It could be asleep. These are the ones I wonder about.
My friend, Josh, who lives in the mountains of France, recently sent me this quote from Jeremy Bentham: "The question is not can they reason, or can they think, but can they suffer?"
I wonder about those that lie by the side of the road not yet dead but dying. Do they know they are dying? We do. We who walk upright. Do they? They can anticipate danger where we cannot, but can they anticipate death? Do they know regret? What do they know? What do they feel? Physically, it is difficult to say since animals have astonishing reserves of strength, an ability to cope with injuries that would level an eighteen wheeler. Rarely, do they even express pain, and then not for long. I know deer have consciousness, but what is that for them? They can't think the way I do. I don't have their consciousness, and they don't have mine. What is waiting to die like for an animal? What do they sense lying there? Do they experience being alone? White tail are not generally herd animals like elk and impala. Are they aware of familiar smells: the scent of an off-spring or mate, the gum smacking aroma of freshly planted roses, the scent of gun oil in the woods that heralds the start of hunting season? If it rains does the rain give comfort? If they land in the shade is there any relief? Is there any relief at all? Are they waiting to die, or do they just die?
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