Grinding Away

May 3, 2018

Daffodils cluster together in cliques of six or seven, showing off their trumpets’ display of yellows, while the willows are painted a wispy pale green, and the honeysuckle blazes forth gloriously in riotous yellow. The snowbells are gone, but the new tips of the pines brighten against last year’s growth, while the old apple in our backyard is getting poised to dazzle us with blossoms. 

In just a couple days’ time, the green of the grass has deepened, while the greyish leaves of the ivy have sprung into new life. Even the creek behind our house is singing joyfully, along with the finches which sport their bright new spring attire. Mama Cardinal has been attacking her reflection in the window almost nonstop for the past three days, and our cat has already brought us his first mole of the season. 

Meanwhile back in Washington, the cycle of cynicism and recriminations continues unabated, insensitive to the greater cycle of life that has been returning unbroken since the earliest dawns of our planet earth. The creek will flow and the trees bud long after the movers and shakers of this world lie still and silent in the grave, to move and shake no more. The news that blared from the radio on my way home was tired and dry, lifeless and oblivious to its own inanity. When the announcer started round two of the same stuff, I decided that my own thoughts were more interesting than hers, so I poked  the off button and drove on in sweet silence. 

I think it was Thoreau who, bemoaning the watermills that dotted the rivers of his day, said, “I wonder what the wheels produce that is half so precious as what they grind.” If he saw it back then, I wonder what he would say today, not only about our mechanized, urban world, but also about our penchant for grinding people in the ceaseless quest for political and social power. Tonight, I sit and watch the squirrel raiding our bird feeder, cat asleep on the couch beside me, and am thankful to be able to trade that world for the one in my backyard. After all, if we are running the rat race, it behooves us to consider that only rats can win it.