A Miracle
This post is contributed by Barnaby Porter from his archives. Read the previous post here.
There has been a preponderance of flattened out rodents on the roads of late. Some are brown, some are gray, and some have quills, but they are all quite flat. It’s too bad. My suspicion is that, in their buck-toothed way, they are all victims of a spring wanderlust that is quite possibly connected to another kind of lust.
On a recent trip to New Hampshire, I was impressed by the unusually large number of porcupines who apparently just didn’t hustle fast enough. Of course, speed is not something they are noted for, but that fact seemed hardly to justify the wholly lopsided ratio of porcupines to woodchucks and squirrels.
It’s possible drivers have it in for porcupines, or perhaps they simply don’t see them in time because of their nocturnal habit. In any case, it’s a shame. They’re actually quite charming creatures, almost human in some of their mannerisms. I have known two young porcupines as pets in years past. They were gentle and affectionate, quite sweet really, and I found most people were sincerely touched by their infant cries and the way they clung for security. Like any prickly situation, there is of course a certain learning curve one goes through in handling them.
The Maine Turnpike is certainly not the safest place for east-west wild wanderings, and the farther south you go, the worse it gets. I could easily sense this as I motored into the lower latitudes of northern New England. The traffic got heavier and faster and the drivers much more reckless. Sleek, sun-roofed cars, goaded onward by quadraphonic sound systems, hurtled past me, switching lanes like spaceships. One driver even dangled his bare foot out his window, a devil-may-care gesture to the rest of the world I supposed.
The flashy, new model cars whizzed by. The trucks rumbled, and the motorcycles roared. Where everyone was going at such a pace was hard to fathom, but it was at breakneck speed. It was a motorists’ world with one dimension, a straight line, and one direction, forward – a raging river of speeding steel and asphalt, tearing rubber and the ceaseless scream of internal combustion pitting itself against friction. As one sign suggested, I concentrated on my driving.
Concentration is what it takes; superhighways can have a hypnotic effect on one, and it doesn’t take much to lure your thoughts away from the task at hand. Hallucinations are no strangers on the highway, and suddenly I found myself having another one. Up ahead, like a mirage, I quite distinctly saw a large bird calmly walking into the traffic lanes from the median strip. It was a peacock! At first I wasn’t so sure, but then I could see its tail trailing behind on the pavement.
The brainless, whizzing drivers ahead never skipped a beat – nary a touch of a brake light nor a swerving car to be seen. Could I be imagining this? I let off the gas, and the mirage persisted, now in the middle lane. I checked my mirror – cars bearing down from behind like a pack of hounds. I did what I could to check my velocity without getting into trouble, yet my real concern lay dead ahead. To my horror, I realized it was no peacock at all, not a peahen either, but a mother black duck with her brood of new ducklings trailing behind her!
I was upon them; the pack was right behind me; there was no hope; there was no tomorrow! I felt sick!
I looked in my mirror expecting to see a tumble of ducklings. Then I saw the mother duck… still leading her ducklings, the whole brood, off the edge of the asphalt to the tranquil safety of a marsh beyond the highway.
A wonderful sense of gladness engulfed me. Maybe it was a mirage. Maybe it was a miracle.
Artist and author Barnaby Porter has had a varied career in marine research, aquaculture, and woodworking, among others. Most recently he partnered with his wife Susan as co-owners of the Maine Coast Book Shop & Cafe in downtown Damariscotta. In October 2021, Barnaby completed his tenure on Coastal Rivers’ Board of Trustees after six years of service.
Duckling photo courtesy of Barnaby Porter
