Roadrunners and other things

1. Things I Had to Say

I thought I had some things to say...

Something perhaps about the spring. About the blooming wild flowers. About the redbud, mountain laurel and plum blossoms. About the bright green elm leaves dotting the hillside. But I've talked about them before, so perhaps I should give it a rest.

Something perhaps about the sun. About the blue sky. About the wren singing to the left of me and the bluejay to the right. About temperatures in the upper 70s. But there is cold weather still in the north, so perhaps I'd just be rubbing it in.

Something perhaps about the Congress. About baseball players professing no interest in talking about the past as they sit before serious politicians. About budget deficits by deficit hawks. About travel to far corners on somebody else's dime. About emasculated ethics committees. But that would end up as so much whining, and no one wants to hear that.

Something perhaps about the war. About making the best of a bad situation. About lies that got us there. About that crazy liberal media that just distort it all. About the dead and wounded. About how if we break it we own it. About slam dunks. But I would just end up on a no-fly list, and you can't get your name off those.

Something about wild places in the city. That's it! I had something to say about wild places in the city.

2. We Saw a Roadrunner

We saw a roadrunner yesterday. We startled it on our noon-hour run as we cut thru a wooded lot where I waded thru yellow flowers last fall. It ran along the path ahead of us and then darted into a thicket. As we ran by, we could see it looking back at us, hoping that we'd leave it alone.

We saw a roadrunner yesterday in a wooded lot as we ran along the path that runs along the creek that runs between that place and a subdivision. The houses are held at bay by the creek, but the thicket and the grass and the yellow flowers aren't long for this world. They will soon be paved over with asphalt when the next phase of the office complex goes in. And when it does, that roadrunner will have to find a different thicket to hide in.

Do we have any place for wild places in the city? Not parks with swings and slides and tennis courts. Not golf courses with acres of tame green turf. But wild places where a roadrunner might run, where a roadrunner might be left alone.

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