WILDWOOD WAYS 



a motion that I made in trying to adjust 

 the focus, he sounded a wild and plain- 

 tive call that seemed to have in it 

 mingled fear and defiance, heartbreak 

 and triumph, and plunged beneath the 

 surface with a vigor and decision that 

 sent him far beneath the ice, his great 

 webbed feet driving him with great 

 jumps, as a frog swims. 



I saw him shoot away from the hole, 

 trailing bubbles. I waited kneeling, 

 watch in hand and thumb on bulb, a 

 minute, two minutes, three, five, ten. 

 The snow shut in again thick, the north 

 wind sang a plaintive dirge and I real- 

 ized that the picture would never be 

 taken. Instead I was kneeling at the 

 deathbed of a wild Northern spirit that 

 perhaps deliberately took that way of 

 ending the unequal struggle. 



The loon knows not the land. Even 

 62 



