The Moon and the Loon

The young loon felt the burn of his day’s flight with each “whoomph, whoomph..” of his spotted wings. The sun had passed over his back from right to left, as he made his way towards the little forested jewel of a lake nestled beneath a dark grey granite cliff, where tiny little quartz crystals twinkled like so many stars in the evening dark.

He bore right and swept a wide turn into the shallows, cutting through the moonlight, and sending ripples of light dancing across the surface next to a bank of reeds and lilies. As he glided to a gentle stop, he was able to rest his wings at last.

It was a long tired journey he’d made this day. A full day of flying without stop, crossing vast prairies, evergreen forests and the final ascent into the foothills of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.

As his feet paddled silently below the surface toward the reed bed, he could feel his heart pounding still in his breast, as he worked to catch and level his breath. It raced still, sending pulses of blood across his vision, now that his wings were stilled, causing the evening vista to be slightly off kilter and irregular.

He was big for his age, healthy and strong and besides being a powerful flier, he was an excellent swimmer and was rapier quick with his sharp beak for catching fish, crayfish and freshwater shrimp and other aquatic animals. The piercing black pupils of his eyes were quick and precise, and he had honed his hunting skills over the last few seasons, learning from his family.

This was his first summer on this lake, and had only spent two seasons with his mother and father and sister at their usual horseshoe shaped lake, only an hour flying distance further toward the star that brings the winter wind.

And as he paddled around, examining his new home, he let out a call of notice, making sure all the other web footed swimmers knew he was making this place his home.

The call also served as a lonely beacon to any females that might have chosen this lake as their home. He was of the age when the instinct to impress the females and choose his partner was fully engaged.

He felt a yearning in his heart and throughout his tired body to be close to another one of his kind. To share this lake with her and swim for fish all day long, laughing and cavorting. He could imagine her near, feeling her soft coos and calls in his ear, and he tingled with warmth at the thought.

He was snapped back to the here and now just then when a beaver slapped its tail and dove below the surface, “sploosh,” warning a deer that had wandered too close to the run he was working.

The sound startled him and just as sweetly and quickly as his imagined partner had materialized in his mind, she disappeared like the ripples from his gently gliding shape.

There were a few ducks and grebes and teals tucked in along the sunset side of the lake, and they clucked and chortled and quacked quietly to themselves. He waited a few breaths to see if perhaps she might answer: But no sound came: He was alone.

He gazed up at the moon, crescent and silvery and slightly concealed by gauzy thin cloud. His eyes adjusted to its soft glow and he noticed her beauty for the first time. The moon’s soft reflected light touched him in his chest and a lump rose to his powerful throat. She had given him a kind of comfort he hadn’t ever felt before.

A call rose in him; from the deepest place inside of him down beneath his heart; in the stronghold of his stomach – the place where he felt his flight pattern and need to find a mate and the skills to catch fish.

It was the moon’s gentle grace that awoke his new sadness; a new loneliness he’d never before felt. Her beauty inspired him, however, and the full and haunting call of the loon sounded and echoed in that mountain lake basin, reminding all the animals that he was there with them, and they were his only audience.

…

Days passed, then weeks. Sunrise, sunset; moonrise, moonset, and on and on, until one night she was not there in the sky for him to sing to. In the days since his arrival, it was the moon and the moon only that he sang for, that he performed his best water dances for.

No female of his species came to his quiet little jewel of a mountain lake. And so, night after night, he would sing his softest love songs and his bravest and most triumphant calls in her beautiful honour. And he would stare up at her for hours at a time, pining in the way only young males can, and dream of one day holding her close to him.

In the first few days when there was no response to his calls, he had thought to leave this lake and maybe join his parents’ lake or some other location so that he might find his love. But the moon’s soft gaze and never harsh light would make his heart tender and sweet.

He would sing his song, staring intently into the eyes he imagined, and would eventually drift into sleep, and dream of the moon by the sparkling cliffs.

…

Then one evening, as he hunted the small silvery fish and crayfish in the shadow of the woods, he noticed the moon’s radiance more vibrantly than ever. She was a beautiful radiant red and as big and glorious as she could possibly be as she made her way up from the horizon.

His heart stopped. For a minute or two, he forgot he was a Loon.

His chest felt as though it carried a moon of that size inside of him. He was full; he was transformed; he was in love.

It was at that moment that he made up his mind that he must go to her. He must fly to her and bring her back to be his mate, and they would swim together, and he would sing and she would light the water majestically for all to see.

He dove deep in the water, filling his mouth with enough to sustain him on what he felt would be a long journey – the longest journey he would ever take, and then burst up from the waters, pumping his wings with all the might he could muster.

He flew hard and fast and high, passing the trees and then the mountains. Onward and upward he flew, past even the clouds and towards the very stars and heavens themselves.

He noticed his heart was beating faster than it ever had before. His lungs were sucking for air, but could not seem to fill them with each lessening breath. Higher still he went, but his faculties diminished with each beat of his wing.

And still his precious moon seemed no closer.

He flew onward, upward, seemingly not making his way any closer to his beloved moon. Until at last he could climb no higher. His lungs empty, his heart near bursting, his head throbbing and dizzy, he began to feel himself slip into unconsciousness, and he slid from his path, feeble and unaware, and plummeted back to the jewelled lake with the crystal cliff.

He hit the water with such a terrible splash, and was jarred back into himself at once. Though his head still hurt, his heart soon returned to normal and lungs were able to fill again with the air he needed.

He was devastated. He had given it his all. And now he was weakened. Having flown north and south and back again three times, he knew his body and its capabilities. “ I won’t be able to do it,” he thought sadly.

But he would try again.

And try he did. Diving deeply and then shooting out of the water like a black and white streak, he pumped and flapped and strove and strained, until, again, he tumbled headlong down along the marsh by his crystal jewel lake, remaining unconscious a time longer. Awakening not aware of his body’s aches from the arduous trip, but of his heart’s burden of the thought of not being able to hold his precious moon close to him.

He sat there, among the marshes, with the realization that he was alone. He wouldn’t be able to retrieve his love and bring her back to the lake. His emptiness filled his being. The hope he had been holding onto, though slightly farfetched, was now gone.

There was nothing left to do. He had wanted only to touch his precious moon love and bring her to him. It was clear that this he could not do.

The lake was quiet. His feelings of sadness were churning in him, leaving him feeling empty and without hope.

He looked at the moon, so perfect, so bright, so gently loving in her distant home, and he dropped eyes and began to cry.

His tears rained heavy and salty warm, making ripples beneath his breast in the water. His loneliness opened him wide as the sky, and he cried and cried. “I am alone, without my one true love; the one who gazes upon me and hears my song. For whom will I sing? For whom will I sing??"

He cried for nearly half the night. In his tearful state, he hadn’t noticed that the moon had risen to her fullest and highest and brightest. As his eyes looked down toward the water, he realized that the lake was shimmering and alive with the light from the full moon.

It was all around him. The light that she gave so freely fell to his side as long as he faced her beauty, and left her image in the water in which he swam.

It was then that he realized that he was swimming in her precious moonlight; a magical alchemical combination of moonlight, water and love. Just as soon as he made this connection, the loneliness broke and the dearest kind of love emerged in its place.

He did not need to possess her; to bring her from her home to a foreign space, though it was his home and he loved her so.

He knew she had heard his songs all those nights, and in her light, showed her love for him. But that too was not his alone. Her light touched all who saw her. Her light was her gift, which she gave freely of.

And here, beneath his speckled, swimming body, were glistening moonlight waves that held him with their magical and generous love embrace. As he looked down into a particularly bright moonbeam kissed wave, he saw his own face.

He saw in his face the look of one who has found love, but the rare and secret kind of love that comes from within and touches the world with its beauty. He had never seen himself look so beautiful and radiant.

It was as though he carried the moonlight he so loved in his own eyes. And as he looked closer, he realized that his eyes were red as the morning sunrise from all the crying that brought him to his new awareness, and they were beautiful.

He rose from the water, flapping his wings and arching his neck upwards, and let loose a majestic call that shook the water and echoed off the crystal cliffs and forested hills.

He looked up at the moon, still so lovely and silently resolute in her arch across the heavens, and knew that everything would be as it should. So long as he didn’t lose the love that shone in his heart and through his brand new, beautiful red eyes.