TheBanyanTree: Return of the Ancients / An Honor Granted

[redd_clay at bellsouth.net]

--

Re:  cranes dancing

No one ever described it with words so well as Marjorie Rawlings in "The Yearling"

For a little proof of that, see this excerpt from "The Yearling" below:


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Penny whispered, "Foller me. We'll ease up clost as we dare."

He pointed. "The whoopin' cranes is dancin'."

Jody saw the great white birds in the distance. His father's eye, he thought, 
was like an eagle's. They crouched on all fours and crept forward slowly. Now 
and then Penny dropped flat on his stomach and Jody dropped behind him. They 
reached a clump of high saw-grass and Penny motioned for concealment behind it. 
The birds were so close that it seemed to Jody he might touch them with his long 
fishing pole. Penny squatted on his haunches and Jody followed. His eyes were 
wide. He made a count of the whooping cranes. There were sixteen.

The cranes were dancing a cotillion as surely as it was danced at Volusia. Two 
stood apart, erect and white, making a strange music that was part cry and part 
singing. The rhythm was irregular, like the dance. The other birds were in a 
circle. In the heart of the circle, several moved counter-clock-wise. The 
musicians made their music. The dancers raised their wings and lifted their 
feet, first one and then the other. They sank their heads deep in their snowy 
breasts, lifted them and sank them again. They moved soundlessly, part 
awkwardness, part grace. The dance was solemn. Wings fluttered, rising and 
falling like out-stretched arms. The outer circle shuffled around and around. 
The group in the center attained a slow frenzy.

Suddenly all motion ceased. Jody thought the dance was over, or that the 
intruders had been discovered. Then the two musicians joined the circle. Two 
others took their places. There was a pause. The dance was resumed. The birds 
were reflected in the clear marsh water. Sixteen white shadows reflected the 
motions. The evening breeze moved across the saw-grass. It bowed and fluttered. 
The water rippled. The setting sun lay rosy on the white bodies. Magic birds 
were dancing in a mystic marsh. The grass swayed with them, and the shallow 
waters, and the earth fluttered under them. The earth was dancing with the 
cranes, and the low sun, and the wind and sky.

Jody found his own arms lifting and falling with his breath, as the cranes' 
wings lifted. The sun was sinking into the saw-grass. The marsh was golden. The 
whooping cranes were washed with gold. The far hammocks were black. Darkness 
came to the lily pads, and the water blackened. The cranes were whiter than any 
clouds, or any white bloom of oleander or of lily. Without warning, they took 
flight. Whether the hour-long dance was, simply, done, or whether the long nose 
of an alligator had lifted above the water to alarm them, Jody could not tell, 
but they were gone. They made a great circle against the sunset, whooping their 
strange rusty cry that sounded only in their flight. Then they flew in a long 
line into the west, and vanished.

Penny and Jody straightened and stood up. They were cramped from the long 
crouching. Dusk lay over the saw-grass, so that the ponds were scarcely visible. 
The world was shadow, melting into shadow. They turned to the north. Jody found 
his bass. They cut to the east, to leave the marsh behind them, then north 
again. The trail was dim in the growing darkness. It joined the scrub road and 
they turned once more east, continuing now in a certainty, for the dense growth 
of the scrub bordered the road like walls. The scrub was black and the road was 
a dark gray strip of carpet, sandy and soundless. Small creatures darted across 
in front of them and scurried in the bushes. In the distance, a panther 
screamed. Bull-bats shot low over their heads. They walked in silence.

At the house, bread was baked and waiting, and hot fat was in the iron skillet. 
Penny lighted a fat-wood torch and went to the lot to do his chores. Jody scaled 
and dressed the fish at the back stoop, where a ray of light glimmered from the 
fire on the hearth. Ma Baxter dipped the pieces in meal and fried them crisp and 
golden. The family ate without speaking.

She said, "What ails you fellers?"

They did not answer. They had no thought for what they ate nor for the woman. 
They were no more than conscious that she spoke to them. They had seen a thing 
that was unearthly. They were in a trance from the strong spell of its beauty.