to be a dove

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"Two mourning doves flew down. Indescribable softness of color, pink over grey; the shape of doves is maddeningly beautiful. Their feet were pink in the moss. They have tiny little heads. Their descent, awkward, nervous, twittering, is a disaster more than a descent. Their rising is labored and noisy. They are so slow only their extreme nervousness saves them. But beautiful—oh, beautiful—dove grey, dove rose, dove blue, and the exquisite lines of their stupid little heads."

– From "The Inland Island" published in 1969 by Josephine W. Johnson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1935 at the age of 24 for her first novel, "Now in November."

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old man turtle

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“The turtle—silent in the autumn-morning mist. Gold lion paws are printed on his shell. On his head. His eyes are red. But gold is what you see. Gold leaf prints, lion’s paws. His ancient snaky head is wet. His shell is wet. He’s beautiful and big. He’s old and bright and washed by rain. His saurian feet are spotted gold, and scratch the cool and mossy stones. Old man, I love you in this autumn mist! I stand there staring at that shell as though I’d found a mound of gold. It’s that remarkable.

"He draws his head inside. He’s had enough.”



Old man is correct. Box turtles can live 140 years, probably even longer.

-Quote from “The Inland Island” by Josephine Johnson

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evanescence

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Jewels. They're feathered jewels. Gold. Red. Orange. Blue. Even streaked in black-and-white.

They're there for all to see, and flash, like the ephemeral wildflowers, the feathered woodland sprites are gone. That's part of their beauty, their evanescence. Did I see it? Or did I not? Here one minute, gone the next. Dozens of migrating warblers are flitting through the valley.

"A black-and-white warbler marked with script flies down. Disappears. No warbler stays visible for long."

Indeed. They induce light-headedness but like the champagne's bubbles. Pop. Pop. Pop. They're gone. Gone. Gone.


-Quote from “The Inland Island” by Josephine Johnson

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the imagined fox

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Somehow, we imagine foxes to be more than they really are as author Josephine Johnson confesses,

“The fox seems fast and fearless, clever and cunning, and without manners or moral or scruples, a legend of freedom, and I had long found release in this private image in my heart. When harassed by those affairs in life for which I am not well fitted—those which require grace or authority, political acumen, wit or social ease; weddings and meetings, funerals and gatherings; or when, bewildered by the constant domestic matters where the warm maternal wisdom and patience are drawn in as though they were from an unfailing spring, instead of a cistern much in need of rain—then, tormented by conflicting voices, by inadequate responses, by lack of wit or wisdom (or even the answer to Who-the-hell-are-you?) the self sought relief in the heart’s image of the wild free fox.”


-From “The Inland Island” by Josephine Johnson

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