Life grows in the seams. If you have any doubts about this, grab some gloves and a bucket and get up and close with a walkway or path of any kind. Look carefully in the spaces between those pavers you so carefully set atop of weed cloth. Inspect the cracks in cement and pavement produced by the shifting earth. Countless and nameless life forms take root, “weed-hold” you might even say, in the most unlikely of slivers, slots, and places.
The neighborhood elk take no notice of such things. We have a herd that has decided that our country high dessert road is a good one to patrol at nights. I know this based not just on the pellet-evidence that these grand and imposing beasts leave in their wake. On more than a few occasions, I have had surprise encounters under moonless nights with a dozen or more denizens of the nocturnal neighborhood. It startles the unprepared late night dog walker, I can tell you, to hear a rustle and turn to find a pack of these reckless marauders stumbling about the front yard. Their mass gives them distinct advantage against the fragile limbs of trees. Move too quickly and their abrupt retreat can permanently damage a portion of the aspen grove that cannot get itself healthy on the north side of the driveway.
If only the elk focused their attention downward, we might have an agreeable relationship. No, their domain is higher, at the shoulder level and above. They nibble and scrape away at tree life in its adolescence. Their specialty is not the short grass and weed of the ground. Which is too bad because there is plenty of that low stuff on my property and I might even leave them a bowl or two of water if our aims were more complementary.
For some reason, however, the elk enjoy the labyrinth. We constructed it years ago, first clearing and semi-leveling a large swath of ground, then laying a pattern of the labyrinth at Chartres on the bare earth, placing river stones to outline its circuits, and covering everything with gravel. That project took some time to complete; there were many weekends of shoveling, smoothing, and stone and gravel transport. But the effort was worth it. Facing east, you can enter and take a contemplative journey under sun, cloud, or stars without care for getting lost or adventuring too far from home. The elk enter from any direction they please. I’ve seen them out there, just standing, staring. Although it’s fun to imagine them walking the turns when I’m not looking, I’m pretty sure that they don’t need the exercise. Rather, they seem content to just be inside the labyrinth’s borders, almost as if they have snuck past the closed doors of a human cathedral after hours and had the place to themselves. I picture them straddling the various sections of the circle, like giants towering over the entire country, their front and back legs in different states. They have nothing to eat. They don’t need to contemplate the moon or mountains. They just enjoy the feeling of being there.
Perhaps you think that I’m anthropomorphizing; elk, you might say, know nothing about contemplative exploration and mindless stargazing. But just how do you or any of us know this? I’ve seen elk, so close that I could almost touch them. I’ve looked into the alleged vacancy of their eyes and I’ve noticed more to their attitude than a dim-witted desire to eat new tree growth. Besides, the massive creatures go to the labyrinth on most nights and the trees that previously tried to line its perimeter have long since been destroyed or removed. They don’t knock the river stones about, either. Their footprints are there in the morning, along with the pebbly remains of their digestion of my aspen trees. I can only offer that animals must be drawn to peaceful energy just as humans are. And I find it strangely reassuring that they derive some benefit from their regular visits to our house beyond their clumsy pruning. It is good that they don’t need to earn a living on this planet in anything resembling that of the human species. Elk are terrible gardeners. Sure, they can leap fences with the grace of animated reindeer. They have rotten judgement though when it comes to which tree limbs to trim or how to dispose of the results of their seemingly arbitrary arboreal efforts.
If only the elk garrison could be convinced to apply their talents closer to the ground. A nursery of grasses and weeds is sprouting up in the crevices of river stone that line the labyrinth. The wind was deposited seeds of new life atop its gravel paths. It would bring me joy if these wandering wapiti would help with the maintenance efforts around the property. Some weeding, even just once in a blue moon, would help keep things in order.