![]() I have just wandered away from it - lost my poles and gear. ![]() And, of course, fishing is a great mainstay for many on the Cape. ![]() But there are those here who can describe the joy of hunting, and I understand it. Berries and littlenecks are as far as I go: the rabbits, the ducks, and the deer are safe from me. Humans existed on wild foods for thousands of years before they blundered into agriculture, and even then we hunted and gathered as we grew our crops and tended our livestock. The atavistic pleasure of hunting and gathering surely resides in our cellular memory. Later, as the clams give up their little lives in a pot on my kitchen stove, the steam delivers that essence of the flats all over again. I drag my rake through the sand until that just-perceptible thunk tells me that I have one or two, maybe more, and into the basket it goes. Out on the West End flats at low tide with my rake and basket, surrounded by my fellow townspeople, roaming opportunistic gulls, and a few late shorebirds, the smell of the briny wet sand and mud suffuses my senses. I feel a similar joy in the off season, when the object of my gathering is the celebrated and delicious clam. Warmed by the sun, they are delicious, evoking the piney woods, the singing warbler, the Fowler’s toad that hops away, and my sheer happiness. I admire them as I gather: they are less blue than purple and blessed with a slight white blush. They give the least bit of resistance, but with a gentle tug the ripe ones roll into my hand and then into a bucket. ![]() I am entirely absorbed in picking blueberries. On a warm, cloudless morning, I am crouched in the underbrush, the only sounds in the woods the song of a pine warbler, the whine of a mosquito, and the distant drone of an airplane. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |