“Dancing is generally believed to be a normal part of motor development …. and thwarts aggression, relieves tension, and strengthens the pair bond.” 

Yup. Oh, to dance again. Turns out, that sentence included two words I replaced with dots, namely the words: for cranes.

I learned about the use of cranes’ dancing at the website of the International Crane Foundation, the only place in the world where all 15 species of cranes can be observed. In Baraboo, southern Wisconsin, no less. Hard for me to imagine to see these birds in exhibits in a refuge, though, rather than in the wild, where they represent such freedom.

I have written about them before, with a few scientific details. Today I want you to see them through the lens of a poet. Linda Hogan is currently the Chickasaw Nation’s Writer in Residence and lives in Tishomingo, Oklahoma.

I have introduced her work here before, a poem about herons, I believe, since her concern for ecological matters, cultural heritage and dispossession of Native Americans is, as my regular readers know, something I share (as part of my documentary film focus for Necessity – Oil, Water and Climate Resistance – there will be an on-line screening for Earth Day – check the link.)

Others more knowledgable than I have also shown admiration of Hogan’s writing: she is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the American Book Award, Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada, and the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry.

The Sandhills

BY LINDA HOGAN
The language of cranes
we once were told
is the wind. The wind 
is their method,
their current, the translated story 
of life they write across the sky. 
Millions of years
they have blown here
on ancestral longing,
their wings of wide arrival, 
necks long, legs stretched out 
above strands of earth
where they arrive
with the shine of water, 
stories, interminable
language of exchanges 
descended from the sky
and then they stand,
earth made only of crane 
from bank to bank of the river 
as far as you can see
the ancient story made new.

*

This concludes a week where meadows, fields, flowers, birds and sky were all still to be seen on walks, and brought to you as tokens of nature that exist independent of our human worries. Reminders, too, that there are still many pleasures to be had.

And talking about pleasure: