Down the Urban Trail

The air is crisp, cold weather that you can sink your teeth into. It's midwinter with a brief break between rainy weather fronts. My fat limping dog and I have got to get out of the house and find some wildness. He lets me know of his happiness and I ignore his comment about hypocrites as I put his leash on and he drags me down the trail. "How will we ever find wildness under these conditions?" he barks at me. "Maybe this time boss? Maybe this time you will let go?" We walk down the trail by the storm swollen stream and hear the same question posed in the air. The storm stream tries hard to break free and wreck havoc, but, the well engineered cement banks give it nothing to grab hold of and it careens on past to the sea, harmlessly. The river's only hope to spread wildness is another storm to raise its banks. The grass above the banks is all of a kind, easily mowed, and no threat to the asphalt path we walk. There is some hope of wildness in the windblown debris left over from the storm. Perhaps seeds of a hardier folk will move in among the grasses and the perfect line of trees that border the trail. Such strangers will have to hide and take cover before the caretakers of the trail arrive tomorrow. They will efficiently find all wildness from the storm and make sure that it is all discarded and hauled to the dump. Perhaps I am looking for nature in all the wrong places. Here it has been collared and leashed and rendered docile. Still it fights back. My hopeful dog directs my attention to the stream and points to an otter that sinks when I look. "Maybe this time, boss?" he implores. Overhead, three noisy geese, free as you please, as insolent as if they were twenty, announce their imminent landing at the county water control pond. Not all of us are on a leash yet.