Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, I think it was. Loved watching it as a kid. It’s where I heard – right or wrong – that gazelle do not fear the lion who has fed. And lions only eat about once every 10 days.
Well, I know I share the lion’s content while I’m smoking a pipe. And backyard nature proves it to me.
Like tonight. I was smoking my meerschaum-lined Grabow with Capt. Black in the backyard, listening to the rumbles of approaching storms and watching the scud running counter to higher level clouds, noting their shear, predicting that if not us, someone down the line was in for some weather.
In those sprinkles ahead of the main storm line, softly sipping at my pipe, around the neighbor’s garage here comes a’hoppin’ Mr. Cottontail.
He wasn’t worried about me in the least. “See the big fat old man? He’s smoking a pipe. Ain’t no way in hell he’s getting up out of that comfy backyard lounge to come bug a rabbit.”
And he was right. Soft curls of smoke, as I watched him run up to a spent dandelion just in front of my chair, snip it low, let it wheel toward the ground as he nibbled it up to the dead dandelion head, and hop to the next one.
Only 10 feet from me, not worried at all. Moving from dandelion stalk to dandelion stalk.
Then out of the corner of my eye, here comes a squirrel. And another squirrel. Up the wooden fence, then tackling each other and falling to the ground, follow-the-leader up the cottonwood and jumping to the walnut, down and under the camper, behind the patio set, and right past me.
House sparrows make their final run before the storm, flitting right past my face, dipping arches from wherever they were to the soffits of the garage just behind me, then out again to whatever they're after.
The detail I can see on these creatures. Every hair. The highlights in their eyes. I see them now, as I recall them for you. Zoomed in now on their eyes, the workings of their nose and jaws and faces as they watch me back. No more afraid of me than they are of the chair I’m sitting in. I’m Marlin Perkins of the city. Respectful and harmless.
I can’t help but think they know the universal rule: “Only the hungry predator chases you to your death. The ones just fed or smoking, they are harmless. Carry on. Carry on.”
A pipe signifies peace to the world, even the animal world.
