Totems

Part of the expressway that dissects the city wends it's way through Delaware Park in meandering s-curves, I imagine to slow traffic down. Also you get to view two buildings from the time of the Pan-American Exposition of 1901, one of which is now the Historical Society, placed facing a section of Scajacquada Creek that also slows to form a shallow pool before carrying on.

I am driving along the curves where a month earlier I saw a wild tom turkey hunting and pecking at the gravel beside the road. Looking past the embankment which borders the pool, I saw what appeared as a sliver of white, bright white that is rarely seen in this city of grays and greens. Like a zoetrope, the thin saplings blocked a clear view but strobed the image into compartments of vision, and this is what I saw: an egret, a crook-necked egret tall and white with a yellow bill and legs. Such things are rarely heard of around here, especially next to a thoroughfare of vehicles; we have herons and bitterns which elicit comments from us cityfolk, but this egret was a deviance of paradigmic proportion.

He or she stood in the water in front of the massive columns of the Historical building within the part of the grounds landscaped as tribute to our sister city of Kanazawa, Japan. The stone lantern and weeping cherry trees at the water's edge lent the bird an aura of mysticism, its feng-shui was rocking the town. Two years ago, that area was famous for housing an alligator that someone had dumped until the police caught him four days later. People also set their unused goldfish free into the Scajacquada and they seem to survive; if you walk through the adjoining cemetery and pause on the footbridge, you will view bright orange survivors of the toss-a-ball-into-the-fishbowl-with-colored-water-at-the-carnival crowd.

The animals insert themselves into our lives everywhere, invited or not. Humans, through fascination and attraction, have used them as icons of trait for centuries. What would you choose? Which animals could represent your history in cedar carvings? A totem, an egret, an alligator, a turkey? Truth be told, I wouldn't use any of those, my life hasn't been that elegant.

My totem would head off with a cat, no five cats, no twenty cats, twenty cat heads mooshed together like a feline hydra, each given a special charm to hold in its mouth. There would be a sparrow charm, a mouse charm, and a slice of ham charm. A scrumpled paper ball, catnip, earrings, and a squirt of Reddi-whip are also lucky. Under Hydracat would come a squirrel for the complacent, semitame Squirrelgirl that used to climb up one's leg for a walnut, representing my job and the current pay received.

Under the squirrel there could be a nice wedge of Cheddar cheese, or Swiss, or Havarti. Aw, just put in a cheese platter with some cut up apple wedges and pears. Mmm. There should be a pair of seahorses that symbolize my ocean fixation, and the bottom support animal/thing would most likely be a Whitman's Sampler of Assorted Chocolates, because I am so grateful that they map out the candy for you on the inside cover. I really don't like mysteries, they always end up hitting you over the head. That molasses one goes right into the wastebasket until later when I dig it back out.

The evening is coming, and tonight I admit the agenda includes "Antiques Roadshow" where I watch stuff that Grandma threw out as crap being estimated at a price able to get you an island off the Carolinas. Oh breezes, oh sand, oh soft nights of changing moon, neap and ebb. Sleep well.