Roosting by Moonlight
By Julia Van Develder
Oct28
I knew they were there. I had heard them once before, but this was the first time I actually saw them. To see five of them that clearly, at eye level--that is something I will never forget as long as I live.
The spectacular sighting was in part because of the way my house is perched on a rock outcropping. It’s not as dramatic as it sounds. I’m not out in the wilderness or anything like that--just an ordinary neighborhood on the outskirts of a little town in the Hudson Valley. There’s a two-acre zoning requirement, so the houses are spread out, and we’re on a fairly steep hill with lots of these picturesque rock outcroppings that were probably a nightmare for whoever developed the neighborhood.
The deck of my house juts out over one of these outcroppings, and just beyond the deck, there’s a drop of about twenty feet to a little wooded area. So from the deck, you’re looking into the treetops.
We have all kinds of wildlife here: deer, of course, and turkeys. Occasionally you’ll see a fox. There must be a whole pack of coyotes. You see them rarely, but at night their demon chorus is enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck, their twisted howls and yips echoing through the woods.
Also, once I saw a bobcat. And even bears are not unheard of. I saw one once, not on my hill, but in a residential neighborhood not far away, lumbering down someone’s driveway.
But I didn’t expect rhinos. And I certainly didn’t expect to see five of them roosting in the treetops as I stood on my deck one moonlit night. The moon drifted out from behind a cloud and suddenly they were illuminated. It took my breath away, literally. They were sound asleep.
You know those pictures in some children’s books where you have to find the hidden object? That’s what this was like. The rhinos were cleverly camouflaged among the leaves, and everything--trees, rhinos, rocks--was painted the same pale gold color by the moon. Beautiful.
The time before, even though I hadn’t actually seen them, I knew somehow they were rhinos. There was no moon at all that night. I am ashamed now to admit that when I heard them out there, singing and rustling the leaves, I went inside and got projectiles to throw at them--apples, I think. And maybe an onion. I threw those things at the rustling rhinos, and one, I am pretty sure, fell to the ground and then crashed away through the underbrush.
Until I started throwing things at them, they were singing in a sort of barely intelligible rhino way--hymns, I think. But that isn’t why I threw things at them. It was purely territorial. They were in my trees, and I didn’t want them there. And I was a little afraid. What if more came and suddenly I had an infestation?
Pure stupidity, I admit. A slight shift in viewpoint and I could have seen them as they really were, miraculous messengers rather than interlopers. I could have felt honored and awed instead of petulant and self-righteous. Besides, I don’t really own those trees, do I? I mean, really own them, in a philosophical sense?
As is the manner of human beings, I attempted afterwards to deconstruct these visitations. One such visit might be attributed to anything--poor digestion, Mercury in retrograde, whatever. But two? Who were these rhinos, and what were they doing in my (I use the word “my” loosely here) trees? Why rhinos rather than, say, panthers? And why five of them? Was there some significance to that number? It could mean something, couldn’t it?
It could, I suppose. But in the end I decided not to dig any deeper into the matter and just let the rhinos be. Parsing them too closely robbed them of some essential part of their being and their power. It was just another attempt to control them--engulf them, the way a cell engulfs a viral invader. Oh, our defenses are so highly evolved! They save us, I suppose, but at what cost?
I’d rather have rhinos in my trees than be safe. I hope I haven’t scared them off forever.