One of my best friends from my school days is in a rehab hospital after hurting her back. I visited her today and found the place rather depressing being confronted with the world of rehabilitation, age and struggle of those trying to get better. The most beautiful time of my visit was a short walk we took into the garden and both of us stopping and watching two Plovers or maybe the cousin two Masked Lapwing feeding and chatting and busy about minding their space.
Such a rewarding experience. We couldn’t see the eggs anywhere (they lay them in the grass) but both parents were making their raucous ki ki ki ki call every now and then and continued to forage in the grass ignoring us. Their uniform black and grey and white with their yellow neck decoration makes them distinctive and they were enjoyable to watch.
I call this a moment of grace for us both. Some could say a triumph of light over darkness. Moments of grace so often a gift from nature, change us – our perceptions, our perspectives and our lives. I feel the following poem taken from the section called The W, The Web,, plumbago,eb from A Call to Listen speaks of this.
from my bedroom window
a low aching sky
colour of wet elephant skin
swathes its heavy hide around me
a tunic for a warrior woman
blue flowering plumbago
laden with rain droplets
quivers in the breeze
a rainbow lorikeet dangles
from a drooping grevillea
the yellow-ribboned spider
orbited in diamond splendour
awaits her prey
the rusting gutter weeps a spangle of tears
ripples rhythmically the puddle it makes
its slow-tapping beat
becomes the music of this silver-slated day
