A mother duck is guiding her three ducklings through the sluggish trickle of water and debris at the very bottom of the Arroyo Seco, a concrete reservoir for rain catchment that snakes like a through my neighborhood. Technically it is a river which begins miles away in the mountains, but by the time it reaches the city it is dry as a bone.
I watch through the warm blue grey haze of dusk as the ducks reach the end of the muck filled puddle. The mama duck waits patiently as each of her ducklings in turn clamber up out of the water and onto the dirty concrete, where once again the foursome continues to waddle onwards in the direction of the imaginary river.
This is the face of nature: unstoppable, often quiet. Barely noticed except by those who pause and look down in the twilight by the side of a highway, or by those who notice the grasses and roots pushing through the cracks in unkept abandoned roads leading nowhere in towns that no longer exist. In southern California where I live, climate change has begun already cracking the foundations of our life with record heat, drought and fires.
As the years pass and the calloused earth continues to dry, a yearning for sustenance— a life real and rich and full—has grown in me with a necessary hunger. I know I am not the only one who feels this.
In the monochrome light of evening I can see through the settling smog the dark shapes of mother duck and her small kin, following an invisible path through the human waste and drought, her own inner constellation guiding her regardless of circumstance.
I imagine her saying: “here, we have water— not so clean but still swimmable.. and here is the concete. Now we walk. Follow close, we are going”
And the watcher on the bridge asks “where? Where in this dirty world are you walking to?” Knowing there are only miles and miles more of concrete here.
And somewhere echoed from this moment, is answered
Not where, Why?
A why, springing up from the very earth, holding the purpose of every growing and grown thing ever to pass into and through form into dust.
Because we must.