One by one and then together the birds chanted, warbled, whistled, and cooed, like a rare desert plant bursting into life after the rain.
The breeze across the desert as the light died was so sweet she could almost drink it.
Long before the stars died the birds began to sing – cool rippling doves, loud cheery starlings, the long lilting trills of warblers and thrushes.
Faraway a leopard barked that high, dissatisfied deep roar it cuts off so sharply, as if its annoyance is too great to express, can only be appeased.
Water was how the desert would bring everyone together. The antelope’s daily prayer, weighing the mortal need of water with the mortal danger of obtaining it.
She was at the same table near the back where three nights ago I’d sat entranced by her songs. And where the two of us had talked like old friends.
I have spent hours and hours watching elephants, and to come to understand what emotional creatures they are…it’s not just a species facing extinction, it’s massive individual suffering.
We sat bathed in luscious darkness, Casco Bay’s thousand islands spread out before us like a diamond quilt. ‘I don’t get enough of this,’ she said.
Then I remembered how she was – fiery, ruthless, smart, and despite herself very caring, not a person who hurts anyone.
Already this sun was pouring its wrath into the blue Indian ocean where swordfish and marlin cruised like silver-blue attenuated warheads in their green-gold depths…
Wind blew snow crystals back and forth between the graves. The ancient pines creaked overhead.
Inside her head or out in the desert was the same, and the air inside her throat was very dry to keep from crying and her neck sore from forcing herself not to look down, not to look back.