Monday, November 23, 2009

Every Eagle Has It's Stream

Bear with me. Somehow I will find a way to make this relevant. So yesterday, a Sunday, I got back from Church, which was uncharacteristically interesting---something about the physiology of death and what happens when you start messing around with ideas about what happens to your body and your soul, if there is such a thing...in any event, as a devotee of the natural world and all its mysteries, I decided to take my soul down to the river...not to pray, not to wade (a little too cool), but to see what I could see...I am an inveterate bird watcher, and as soon as I got to the spot where I could park my car, I hopped out and plunged into the trail-head. As soon as I got into the path, a fully mature Bald Eagle passed right over head, heading downstream--just an aside, I have now realized that every stream in this area now sports a Bald Eagle territory...I have not found the nests, but I am certain that there are defined territories along this stream as well as others in this headwaters of the Little Gunpowder stream AND its more commonly referenced Gunpowder river (larger and more commonly noted in Northern Baltimore County). So, we have a highly functional river system in this area, and the birds are as plentiful as they could be. Not a news flash, but maybe useful to some.
The real interest comes in the fact that this stream system is intertwined with a bygone transportation corridor of significant complexity. There are sizable earthworks that remain...100 foot track beds crisscross the area, with small tunnels at the base to let water through the derangement. In other areas, massive abutments show the way the railroad crossed the stream coming down and back to and from Harford and Baltimore Counties...I am not an historian, but this relic of a bygone "high speed" transportation corridor creates an eerie feeling of connection to the past, and a reminder that all is fungible, doomed to decay, and merely patiently awaiting the next whole-scale change in technology and progress. We know but a little, and what were certainties inevitably become relics. We do not get to choose our time. We cannot have perspective on our own future. Loose garments. The evolution of species. The way of the world in seconds, hours, days, years, decades, eons, and infinities. Look to thyself for a glimpse of eternity. Hic Finis Est.

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