The Woodpile

The Woodpile By Maggie Gray

The Wood-Pile

A Poem by Robert Frost

“Out walking in the frozen swamp one grey day

I paused and said, “I will turn back from here.

No, I will go on farther and we shall see.”

The hard snow held me, save where now and then

One foot went down.

The view was all in Straight up and down of tall slim trees

Too much alike to mark or name a place by

So as to say for certain I was here . . . . . . .”

Having moved to a rural community, I thought the adjustment would come easily. Vast silences, long drives, desolate open fields and unexpected wildlife sightings. I love the quiet here with the open starry skies and no light noise from large cities breaking up the star-filled nights. I can drive down a gravel road, cut the engine and take in the darkness. I feel the wind blowing, I intently listen for coyotes yipping out in the murkiness and look up astonished at the stars and the constellation formations.

Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Leo, Orion, Cassiopeia are brilliantly out there waiting for me to recognize them and their changing positions on different nights. There’s a rush when I stand out on the open road in the total pitch blackness. Sometimes I get a chill running through me not from the cold but how fragile I feel not knowing what could be out there lurking and seeing me. In that brief moment, I am not the hunter but the hunted in my mind. Once you have left the U.S. and experienced the vast starry nights of an African sky, you learn quickly how easily you have become prey and the reality hits you how vulnerable you really are.

Living a rural life – whether you farm or ranch is a totally different mindset. People hunt, trap and kill animals that may threaten their livelihood. Tree-huggers don’t fare well out here confused that all animals have rights. Yet raising livestock requires steadfast protective action and predator encroachment can devastate someone’s livelihood. I am that tree hugger. I am that person whose heart aches when hearing that a farmer has “culled” foxes to protect their chickens or farms. Yet, if a predator threatened my dogs, I would be the first to protect them against all odds. You can stand on your beliefs all day long until you are faced with reality and survival. But this little tree hugger won’t admit it to anyone unless that moment comes.

There are feral and wild animals everywhere – coyotes, foxes, cats, opossum, the list is endless. They burrow in the ground, create dens, hide in thickets and often use woodpiles for hiding their young. Feral cats are common in every town and city. It is hard for me to see feral cats wandering the streets searching for food and surviving in brutal winter conditions. I have now become so-acquainted with a wood pile’s use other than wood used for burning. This past summer, I awoke to loud cries coming from the open field next to my home. It was relentless and piercing. I went out in the dark and realized it was kittens meowing non-stop. This behavior went on for two or three days and I reached out to a cat rescue who advised me that the mother cat had probably placed the kittens in the bottom of the woodpile for safety while she was nursing. She said keep an eye out for the mother because sooner or later she will return to nurse or move the kittens to another safe location if she felt threatened.

For days I kept hearing the meowing but noticed by the fifth day, the meowing was getting quieter. I felt comfort that mommy cat was caring for her babies. On the sixth day, the meowing subsided. Honestly, I was sad thinking the kittens had been moved, but knew mommy cat had probably moved them to a quieter location away from trucks and lawn mowers and traffic noise. I admit it, I had to go check, my heart hoping they were still down there and would look up at me one more time with those big beautiful blue eyes curious of me as I was with them. I got my flash light and went out to the wood pile. No meowing, not a sound. Then I was hit like a punch in my stomach as the kittens had died. I stood out in that field and cried that I hadn’t done anything. “Mother nature took its course” people would say. The mother was probably too immature to nurse or had too many kittens and moved these two little guys as she ran out of milk. I have heard it all.

Until I move from this home, that ugly woodpile now is the resting place for two little kittens that cried for days. I didn’t know they were starving. I didn’t know they were terrified under the dark starry filled nights. I didn’t know that they were alone in that dark cold place when human intervention could have changed the landscape of their lives and mine. We as humans must not forget that rescue work is daunting, exhausting and the most rewarding journey we can embark upon. Whether you rescue a dog, take part in a spay/neuter project for feral cats, or just put out scraps during brutal winter conditions for wildlife, remember feral animals multiply because we do nothing. I have to look at that woodpile now and will never again consider it just a pile of cut wood. I am writing this story because those little kittens deserved better. Their lives mattered and now your having read my story are part of theirs as well. They lived and died in a woodpile and this tree hugger will never forget they mattered and promise next time I will do better. I owe them that, I owe me that.