A Language Older Than Words - Derrick Jensen [50]
No matter how we try, we cannot eradicate every vestige of life and love. Each new child—human, plant, animal, stone, or star—offers a new possibility, and each new encounter an opportunity for communion, however great or slight. Just yesterday I drove to the grocery store to pull boxes of scraps from the dumpster. As I worked I noticed a man sitting on a curb, watching. His clothes were old, ill-fitting, and torn, his shoes falling apart. I couldn't tell his age; the bottle, in a brown paper bag, from which he drank may have aged him ten years, or maybe twenty-five. I finished the boxes, and got in the truck. We made eye contact, and nodded. He stood and walked toward me. "Do you get food out of there?"
Homeless people ask me that all the time. Had I pulled anything of value, I would have given it to him. "Sometimes. Today I just got lettuce leaves." He thought for a moment, looked away, then looked back to me. He reached in his pocket and said, "Can I donate a couple of bucks so you can get some food?"
Communion. "No thanks," I said, "The lettuce is for my chickens." I smiled, and he smiled back. "Thanks," I said, "Thanks so much."
Things don't have to be the way they are.
It's two days later. Two young chickens died the night before last, most likely from cold and damp. I was awakened near dawn not by dreams of chicks, but by the barking of my dogs. I stumbled to the window and pulled the drapes in time to see them chasing a slender slip of reddish-tan through deep grass and into the woods. I went back to sleep, and they awoke me again not long after. Again I looked outside, and this time saw the dogs not running, but standing and barking. I followed their gaze to see a coyote—I assume the same one because it had the same reddish coat—standing twenty feet away, not moving. We made eye contact for one long moment, and still dopey from sleep I could think of nothing more profound to say than, "Hey, why don't you stay away from the chickens?" The coyote continued to stare, as now did the dogs, perhaps all three stunned by the brilliance of my morning wit. My mind slogged through mud as I tried to assemble another comment. Finally the coyote turned and walked slowly into the trees, and the dogs, too, turned to mind to their morning. I crawled back into bed.
When I awoke for the day I went outside and into the rain. The chicks were huddled, trilling, under a makeshift shelter that keeps them dry, and normally warm as well. Closer inspection revealed two dead chicks far underneath the mass. I took them to the coyote tree, and returned to my desk. A little later I heard Narcissus give his battle cry, taken up now by Amaru, who is learning the same pitched yell. Running outside I saw again the same coyote, again standing to stare. Again I called the same feeble question, "Why don't you stay away from the chickens?" This time the coyote turned, walked to a fence post, lifted his leg, then trotted into the bushes.
I have a strong suspicion of what the coyote may have meant by this, but I
don’t know for sure. I do know that my efforts at interspecies communication are doomed so long as I expect others - by which I mean everyone else on the planet - to learn my language, and I remain unwilling to learn theirs. In the ways of these other languages I remain embarrassingly ignorant. Though I own no television I know commercials for products I will never use better than I know birdsongs I hear at dawn and dusk. Play me three notes of Stairway to Heaven or Freebird (or even, embarrassingly enough, the theme songs to Green Acres or Gilligan's Island), and I can name that tune, but play me a symphony of bird songs I hear each day, and I've got no clue as to their origin or meaning. How could I possibly expect