On the surface, David Gessner’s wonderful book, “Return of the Osprey” is about just that: the return of a thriving, sustainable population of osprey, once known as “fish hawks,” to the Atlantic coastline.
The author digs in and watches a season of osprey nestings and the raising of their families on Cape Cod.
“A new clarity illuminates the days. Honeysuckle sweetens the air and the post oak’s leaves wave big and waxy, no longer mere drooping half leaves. We approach the solstice, the annual climax of light, the days when we see longest and clearest. The other night a luminescent apple core, cleanly split in half, stood in for the moon, and later fireflies sparkled. I sleep rocked by a larger rhythm, the ocean breathing in and out. It doesn’t take much imagination to understand why ospreys choose to live near water. On some nights I walk down to watch the world’s eye sink: the sun drops into the water of the bay, staining the sky with pinks, yellows, and oranges,” writes Gessner.
And there it hangs. Any great book is about more than it purports to be, and Gessner’s is about slowing down and actually seeing: longest and clearest. Seeing with the heighten eyesight of a raptor.
“An osprey’s vision is almost eight times greater than a human being’s but that only hints at their acuity,” he reports. Call it awareness, totally in tune with their natural world.
As Gessner ensconces to watch ospreys and the marshland around them he writes, “That’s the central paradox of slowing down: it leads to excitement that is often dazzling. What, after all, surprises and delights us? Speed. Growth. Quantity. Vibrancy. Variety. These are the qualities the natural world presents if we simply sit still and open our eyes.”
To seal the deal, Gessner goes to Harvard’s rare book collection at Houghton Library and visits some of the handwritten journals of the master of transcendence Ralph Waldo Emerson, who viewed the world with a “transparent eye.” Emerson is noted for being the cool analytic, free of emotion, but Gessner notes that the handwriting of the master of the well-measured sentence becomes “less legible when he grew excited and rushed.” We sense the pounding, enthralled heart of the engaged Ralph Waldo and then Gessner and, now, even myself.
Published in 2001, “Return of the Osprey” is a superb, textured read.
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1 comment:
Excelled yourself with this post. Exactly how I feel I should behave. After a lifetime of 'Time' it's hard to change. Will remember this and incidently the book, should I be lucky enough to find it.
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