Don't frighten the crane
The jewel of the marsh and bog
Don't offend the hot heart
Of my beautiful one

Tuvan folk song from Huun-Huur-Tu's If I'd Been Born an Eagle CD

Journal of a Sabbatical

October 24, 1998

don't frighten the crane

Robert Frost Festival today at Lawrence High

the book pile

Copyright © 1998, Janet I. Egan

Another perfect autumn day!

This afternoon as I drive home I spot a great blue heron out of the corner of my eye. It's standing in the weeds next to Becky's Pond behind the hardware store, or where the hardware store used to be - it went out of business last week. I'm on the wrong side of the street to pull over, so I drive a little further to where I can turn the car around and pull into the parking lot next to the office building on the other side of the pond. By the time I do this, there's no sign of the heron. It must still be there though. I walk slowly, gingerly, looking around for the heron. My feet crunch in the fallen leaves. Suddenly the heron takes off from about 3 feet to my left and passes right in front of me. I hadn't seen it there and obviously I frightened it. The Tuvan song, Don't Frighten the Crane, was running through my head even before I frightened the poor heron. I took a few pictures of autumn leaves reflected in the pond, and the reeds, and stuff, but the heron didn't come back.

I went to Andrea's soccer game this morning. She scored her first goal - ever. It was neat to watch kids having fun on such a beautiful day. Andrea gets embarrassed when I show up at these things but I thought I saw a flicker of a smile when she noticed I was there, event though when I made eye contact she gave me THE LOOK. Hmm, photographing the soccer game was a lot like trying to photograph the heron :-)

I couldn't scoot over to Lizzy's soccer game in Maynard 'cause I had to meet the walking buddies at North Andover Common - we haven't all made it to a Saturday walk in ages. Joan-east was eager to show us the 19th century section of the North Parish cemetery, which she discovered while out walking on Tuesday. She kept calling it "a find". The old stones are starting to topple, like the ones across the street in the 17th/18th century cemetery. There's some pretty nice carving and some nice trees and vines. I went back later to take some pictures in the late afternoon light.