Despite the Changing Seasons--I Have Loved You

Text: Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. (1968)

"For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech." --from the Forward

     I started reading this in the bathtub and almost extinguished my candle from the breath of laughter.

     Little did I know that this rugged, direct naturalist/scientist would take me on a travel through the year, through the changing seasons that revolve around the one unchanging love in him for the land. His words are raw, the sentences terse and short at times, none of the philosophical exclamations of Thoreau's pages--just the "bare essential" that is by no means unweighted or provocative. Beginning with the January Thaw, first chapter, I had the feeling that this man means business, that he understands the hope that lies buried under dark winter night skies. These are Leopold's first words:

"Each year, after the midwinter blizzards, there comes a night of thaw when the tinkle of dripping water is heard in the land. It brings strange stirrings, not only to creatures abed for the night, but to some who have been asleep for the winter."

I find in these lines a soul with keenly observing senses and sensitivity to what may be the profundity underneath this material world. The entrance of tinkling water into a scene amidst dead winter is almost existential. And whatever "strange stirrings" these may be, it matters not perhaps against the sheer act of awareness toward them.

     From

• The "Good Oak" of February to
• The "Geese Return" of March, followed by
• The High Water, Draba, Bur Oak, and Sky Dance of April and
• The Plovers in May.... 

     I've trailed after Leopold

• fishing in Alder Fork during June, 
• celebrating "prairie birthdays" in July, 
• watching the Green Pasture painting in August, 
• listening to choral birds in September, 
• hunting grouse amidst smoky gold tamaracks of October, 
• imagining the wind's trail in November,
• coming to "Home Range" at the end.

I've come to know, briefly but with fondness, these endearing trees, creatures, and landscapes, almost wishing to compile a photo book dedicated especially to them until... I realized that I must not be Aldo or the Sand County's first fan--someone must have already done so; and indeed, such a book is sitting in my professor's office this very moment.

     The haiku artists, too, followed the seasons in composing poetry. The kigo, or seasonal words signify time in each verse: sakura blossoms for spring, fireflies for summer, maple leaves for autumn, and snowflakes for winter. When plum is insight, one knows it is the second month; when a little boy's celebration  is mentioned, one knows that the fifth month is near. Of course, Aldo Leopold's life-long labor elaborates much more than such symbolic suggestions, but I believe it is done so with the same respect, awe, and love for the natural world.