Lake Powhatan

 

January 7, 2021

Bach viols in the purple air. I wrote yesterday before hearing the news that Proud Boys et al had strolled–armed to the teeth–past DC police and into the Capitol Building, looting, occupying offices, driving members of Congress and Senators through underground corridors to safety. Photos of yahoos and cowboy fascists cavorting in the rotunda and in the office of the Speaker are almost impossible to credit. The worst 3 or 4 hours in American history since Antietam. Many note that the police stood and watched the rioters walk by, when, had they been BLM demonstrators, there would have been immediate gunfire. All the worst that we are condensed into a few twilight hours along the troubled Potomac. Trump all but commanded his rabble to do just what they did. Trump, Hawley, Cruse and others are so clearly guilty of treason that each hour without their arrest is a frustration and an outrage. . . but, my guess is, Trump will be allowed to sneak away after January 20 without official rebuke. I too do not know where to draw the line between justice and reconciliation, but I would try harder than DC officialdom seems to be doing. I recall the Civil War and Reconstruction. That was the wrong choice. It left the serpent alive to strike out of the shadows again.  How many times do we have to defeat the Confederacy and the Reich before we allow ourselves the killing blow? I should look back in these pages to see how many times I have written, “this is the worst day in American public life in my lifetime.” The bar continues to be lifted. 

So, perhaps in response to this, I rose in the still-dark and drove to the Hard Times trailhead. Hiked hither and thither, but something drew me to one path rather than the others, and that led to Lake Powhatan. I’ve been to the lake, but I didn’t remember exactly that route. The water was slightly agitated by wind, dark green, cold even to the eyes. Far out in the middle I saw two hooded mergansers diving and arising. They were spirits in the middle of a world of things. I watched them a long time, finding them inexpressibly beautiful, their movement on the water a kind of blessing, a kind of calm. They were both males. If there were females about I didn’t see them. I watched through my binoculars until my fingers went numb. Walking back I heard prolonged, hysterical barking. I figured a dog had a bear treed, and I wanted to see, maybe shoo the dog so the bear could escape, so I walked toward the tumult. I got so I could almost see what was going on, when I saw an orange shape and jumped at a sudden series of gunshots. The dog was evidently attached to a hunter. Still didn’t resolve to turn around until I realized my dead-leaf tan coat, my brown shirt and gray pants would not distinguish me very much either from the brush or from a wild animal, so I turned and made for the car. The gun was still firing, the dog still barking. When I got home, phoebes were feeding from the red berries on the vine I keep forgetting the name of.