Point of View: Sedge Who? Sedge Me.

“God, look at all the fireflies — I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many. But I haven’t seen many bees. We must call Larry.”

“Are those things roaches?”

“No, no, roaches don’t fly.”

“We better call Larry.”

“He said, by the way, that the best nature walk he’d ever been on, in all of his 81 years, was in Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor.”

“Are you sure those aren’t roaches?”

“Don’t be so jumpy. The night is tender, and the fireflies are beautiful.”

“Roaches multiply like crazy.”

“Roaches don’t fly. . . . Where are you going?”

“To call Larry.”

“Don’t forget to ask him about the bees.”

A few minutes later:

“He told me that the bees wouldn’t be endangered if they went to organic farms, and that, moreover, moths and wasps were pollinators too.”   

“Oh, really? Did he say roaches fly?”

“I didn’t get a chance to ask him, he had to answer another call.”

“People must be calling him all the time. ‘Hello, yes this is Larry Penny, will you hold. . . ?’ How can he be at one with Nature when everyone’s calling him with questions about it — was it a hummock they saw, or a tussock, for instance. There’s a difference, you know.”

“Sedge who?”

“Sedge me.”

“Speaking of tufts, weren’t you the one who said the bird I saw that time was a tufted towhee when you knew it wasn’t.”

“When you don’t know what you’re talking about you must say it with certainty — that’s rule number one.”

“Which is why I think these are roaches. . . . I mean I know there are tufted towhees . . .”

“No, there aren’t. . . .” 

“But that wasn’t one.”    

“There are no tufted towhees. I was conflating, conflating a tufted titmouse with a towhee bunting.”

“Where’s our bird book. . . ?”

“I don’t know, better call Larry. Meanwhile, let’s not obsess. As La Rochefoucauld said, ‘Tender is the night and the fireflies are beautiful.’ Try a new approach: Blend your spirit in with the vastness, with the ten thousand things.” 

“Maybe, but only after a few of those ten thousand things stop encroaching.”

“I told you, roaches don’t fly.”

“Larry would know. . . . But let’s let him be.”

“And that’s where we came in.”