Homeboy at Home During Coronavirus

July 24, 2020: Coyote hollow, Thetford Center, VT

5:23 a.m. 62 degrees, wind NW 2 mph. Sky: foggy. Woods: soaked and dripping. Permanent streams: aroused by rain; fuller and louder than yesterday. Intermittent streams: current bearing. Wetlands: a bowl of mist; far shoreline erased; dew-pendant spiderwebs stitched to reeds, glisten. Pond: although the fog appears confused, heads east and then north and then east again, my attention situates.

DOR: three-year-old garter snake, in perfect condition

AOR: hermit thrush and robin

A quiet morning. Robins tone down (someone must have complained about yesterday's racket). Warblers hushed, hidden in woods or elsewhere. Lone tanager in oak interrupts departure preparations; sings farewell to summer. Try as I may, I still can't find him. Pewee whistles. Pileated yells, a volley—kuk, kuk, kuk—forceful and wild. Sweet-voiced veery spins fog into music. House wren ignites. Filling in auditory gaps, red-eyed vireos full of robust glory, and, for a brief moment, make me forget that on the back half of summer, chore-driven warblers turn attention to things other than pieces of music.

At the pond, the outflow culvert similar to the bathroom faucet, a constant leak. I stare at drip. Then, a clatter of pebbles. The dogs stiffen, and an otter, emerging from an adventure in the wetlands, scrambles up the bank, looks askance, and then passes through the drip, up the culvert and into the pond, flat head just above the surface. Tiny ears. Black button eyes. Nose, black, and full like the dogs'. Back straight and tail, a long, muscular cable, arched. Swims back and forth, trailing a wake behind him; watches me watch him. Otter submerges, leaves behind two bubbles, and rings of undulating ripples, which turn every reflection in a Monet. Surfaces with a fish and a gentle exhale, more a sigh than a blast. Dives, again. A crayfish. Repeats seven more times. Seven more crayfish, one so big that claws stick out of the otter's mouth, An imperial sportsman—the crunching of bones and shells, an audible breakfast.

Above the otter: catbird cuts lose; kingfisher passes back and forth; ungovernably rattles. Bittern arrives from wetlands and settles on the mowed lawn, bill pointing skyward. Looks at me, skeptically, and sways. Eventually and tentatively, walks down to the shore; nabs brand new green frogs. A second otter walks out of a bank of ferns. Sees me. Walks back in.

Gift of a delicate pond: otter's gentle breath; kingfisher's sharp rattle; painted turtle floats spread-eagle, a poker chip with limbs. Sunlight turns fog translucent, time stops. Immersed in inexhaustible delight, a privileged bystander captivated by the moment like the otter . . . I have no option but to stay.