It is my great privilege to live
On a North bank of Indian Creek
Where in our back yard,
The creek flows from East to West.
And where forty or fifty yards downstream
The creek begins to make a grand U-turn
Achieved with great dignity
Over another hundred yards or so
Which, when once complete
Then flows from West to East.
Lovingly embraced by the creek’s great curve
Lives a low-lying forest of trees
Native to this clime a forest once so thick and dark
That it appeared impenetrable
So impenetrable that, years ago, it prompted my then 5-year-old granddaughter
To peer intensely into the forest’s depths
And exclaim in magical and magnificent child wonderment
I think some Native Americans must be living in there!
Years later, in 2020, came the derecho
Leveling the great majority of those hundreds of trees
Devastating the deep dark forest
Along with its dense mysteries.
Yet, the derecho left dozens of trees
Still standing
In the loving embrace
Of the creek’s great loop
Most of these remaining dozens
Stand whole
Mourning the losses
Of their fellows.
Some are also bent
A few are missing limbs
But they live on
Just now beginning to thrive
In concert with their individual losses
So, today, though profoundly changed
And in the depths of grief
The forest remains in its altered state
Now interspersed with tall grasses
And flowering plants
Urging me to imagine
Especially in one great space
At the elbow of the creek
Where no trees survive
That a tall grass prairie
Perhaps even
a miniature savannah
Is being reborn
That seeds long dormant have become
The tall grasses now growing
And the flowering plants now emerging,
Uninhibited by the dark forest once there.
And, in the midst of all this loss and renewal
In the midst of all of this new life
Directly across from our home
Stands one giant tree
Completely stripped of its leaves
Completely stripped of its life
It is
Utterly dead.
Yet towering and unique
Standing straight and tall
It remains a sturdy skeleton of what
Was once a great living being
This skeleton
Now a dear friend
Commands my attention
And invites me
In its stark existence
To daily
Contemplate death
All the while
Deep inside my dear, dead friend,
Myriad generations of many species
Of insects live
Invisibly doing their work
Their silent work
Occasionally punctuated
By the hammering of woodpeckers
Some small and brown
Some gray
Others
Big
Bright
Black
Red
And White
And on rare occasions, only in the winter months,
A lone adult bald eagle perches on one of the uppermost branches
Of my ever-present skeletal friend
A compelling presence, against the stark gray layered sky,
This lone eagle peers from his perch
Into our house
Somehow vaguely reminding me of my son
Who died in December 2021.
Then, one blustery winter day last December
December of 2023
Two years after my son’s death
How could that be?
While contemplating my great skeletal friend
And in one brief electric moment
The lone eagle appeared suddenly
Over the creek in front of our house
In the midst of a fierce winter storm
And, in that moment, did something
I have never seen an adult bald eagle do
He struggled mightily and desperately to maintain his bearings
And to balance himself in those strong, unpredictable blasts of wind.
Finally, after a few seconds, he righted himself
Maintaining his position in those great gusts
And, for several seconds
Stared down
Into our house
Directly into my eyes
And, in that moment, I felt my son’s presence again
And cried out a greeting
That felt acknowledged
Just before he turned and upstream
Flew away.
And, so, as time passes
I know that my towering dear, dead skeletal friend
Will eventually fall
Limb by limb
And that finally,
Perhaps even after I, too, am gone
From this life’s consciousness
To a different, larger consciousness,
My friend’s massive mother trunk
Will crumble in place
Or, in yet another great storm,
Crash to earth
And begin to feed the children around her
And, so I have come to know
That this very moment
That
IS
NOW
Is the only moment any of us
HAVE
And that life and death
May not
Be so very different from each other
After all.
—Frank Nidey, Prairiewoods board member