I have heard people say that valleys like this were made by beaver, by the water from the beaver meadows eating the rock. The work of the animal is everywhere in evidence. Beaver are said to be responsible for all the meadows in the woods, but it is their continuous creation of wet land, of the source of life, that is the most remarkable of their achievements. In a wetland one sees life threaded together in a vivid interwoven tapestry. Fish rise to swallow midges through the transparent surface film. Dragonflies dash over the surface after the midges, clicking their wings with a soft papery sound, and are abruptly taken by the fish. A heron stands watching in a shallow lip of water like a stripped discolored branch.
Inside the beaver dam, I have read, the floor is covered with sweet rushes and pine boughs, and above the water level there is a hidden balcony for the beaver to look out from. In the beaver marshes above the falls there once grew rushes and sedges with their diamond-shaped three-sided stems and knotty beaded heads, and brightly colored irises, wild flags—violet blue in spring. We would often see deer, stepping slowly through the marsh among the water plants, unaware of our presence. Birds filled the place and its rotting trees. One fall evening as I walked there with Fred on the path of dead leaves a woodcock suddenly flew up from the ground, looking like the dead leaves themselves, whirred around and around us, making its vibrating cry that sounds like wax paper over a comb— peet peet.
Then the beaver left and the marsh began to dry up and to turn into a meadow. We do not often go there anymore.
…
Lan and Fred and I walked up the hill today, looking for the white hawk, which we have not seen all week. The trees, still bare silver in the smoky light of early spring, brighten the air down the valley as the sun slants through.
We did not see the hawk, and looked at the ice that still covered the cistern in white-veined edging around the middle as it began to crack, melting into a pool where the spring runs in.
We walked along the upper edge of the field and into the woods where a path leads along a stone wall into stands of old birch. There are many fallen trees, and those still standing are heavily pocked by pileated woodpeckers. We walked through stands of tall white pine, their lower branches broken, their faint fine green needles in a lime blue wash of sap spilling down from above.
We walked down the hill toward the creek. There was a tongue of ice, like spilled water, long and broad, but frozen, coming into the scrub growth. Lan and I went over to see what it was, and followed it toward its source among the osier thickets. To our surprise we saw the ice broaden into the lakelike bed of a marsh, drowning the huge old trees that were girdled about by intricate gnawing, though still standing, others fallen leaving only sharp new points. In their midst, through the gray stems of osiers in the water laced with ice, we saw a high dam of newly packed mud. It had a quality of fairyland. The beaver must have created it in just a few months, for the last time we had walked down to the lower fields there was only a narrow stream flowing under the trees. We walked down a deer path through the dry reeds and saw that this is where the white hawk had gone. It perched in a dead tree above the marsh, keenly eyeing its wealth of living things.
As we came down to the water two wood ducks flew up with shrill whistling cries. A beaver appeared in the water below us. His large black tail floated up behind him as he stood, like a little man, half out of the water, picking up clumps of waterweeds and eating them with his hands. We sat watching, with our tea and bread and thick crystalline honey, for half an hour or more, the light thickening on the far birches and the slope of trees.
The beaver at last swam away, and we began to walk back toward the house. Then we saw him surface again, and stand in a shallow pool directly in our path. Fred ran, barking, to the pool’s edge. The beaver slapped the water loudly with his heavy tail. The sound resounded all around us, sending circles through the water, through the air. Then he disappeared. I looked to the slope of trees, which was turning a pinkish gold. We walked away into the woods, the trees like golden threads before us.
About the Author
SUSAN BRIND MORROW is the author of The Names of Things. A classicist, linguist, and translator of ancient Egyptian as well as contemporary Arabic poetry, she lives in Chatham, New York.
Connect with HMH on Social Media
Follow us for book news, reviews, author updates, exclusive content, giveaways, and more.
Wolves & Honey Page 12
