It was one of those long and heavily burdened soul, worry-laden nights where sleep was just not forthcoming, nor would it be for quite awhile. But there comes a time past the point of no return when taking some type of sleep-inducing substance becomes impractical if one expects to be at all productive the next day. So there I lay in the blessed coolness, for the first time in days without a fan turning over me, quietly, eyes closed, thoughts everywhere but on sleep, and waited. And then it came, a small miracle proffered by the night’s extended hand, from the dark, a small ray of hope and shred of comfort thrown to me like a life preserver in a black, roiling sea.
I heard a loon.
It was distant at first, on the next pond, perhaps, the mournful, soulful, lonely nocturnal cry of this remarkable bird that has something to say at all hours of the day and with a different intonation each time. This was its night voice, reaching across the pond in all its aloneness, its three distinct notes reaching for another of its kind, or was it telling me that I wasn’t alone, or at least not completely so? Often, I hear the loon once, twice, but this night, it was to comfort me ’til first light, its cry coming each time I woke ”“ or was it wakening me?
At some point, I expected to hear it take flight, expected its loud, piercing, tremulous yodel to unravel beneath a moonless sky. But the bird stayed put, even long after the rain came, long after other creatures had most likely sought shelter, reminding me every hour or so that it was still there, that I was still here and that those two truths were something at least. Even through the cacophony of my cares, the jumble of troubles tumbling inside my head, coupled by the sound of rain hitting leaf and roof, its cry was sure, plying the wet darkness with an instinctive and age-old assurance when all seemed for naught. And when hope was not materializing from behind the monsters in the closet, this avian messenger gave me something to cling to, something to look forward to as the night dragged on and sleep finally came only in fits and starts.
Slowly, my troublesome thoughts dissolved as I shifted my focus on whether or not I’d hear the loon again, and sleep finally made its way in, staying longer and longer each time. Finally, though the rain persisted, the eastern sky began to lighten through my windows, and I heard the loon no more. Gone it was, to wherever it is that loons go when another long expanse of darkness has given way once more to the light when it perhaps knows instinctively that its night call will be conspicuous and incongruous until shadows begin again to lengthen at day’s end.
I heard a loon that night, when I most needed to, and it kept me company and helped to keep my own shadows at bay. And when day finally dawned, I remembered and will listen for it again when sleep eludes me, when I will again place my faith in its ability to distract me, to turn me from my fears in a way that only nature, through one of her faithful creatures, can.
— Rachel Lovejoy, a freelance writer living in Lyman, who enjoys exploring the woods of southern Maine, can be reached via email at rachell1950@yahoo.com.
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