I'm Sorry

I heard a cardinal singing in the yard this morning.  It seems early, but the increasing sunlight and warmer temperature today inspired him to call out his territorial claim.  Looking out the front window, I saw a mockingbird, a starling and a pair of robins.  In the early afternoon I set out for a walk in the park, intending to follow the hillside downstream, staying off of the main path.  But as I entered the park, I saw red and white plastic in the little stream to the left.

I walked across the ivy covered ground and carefully down the rip-rap rocks.  I looked for secure footing on the rocks, and thought that my yoga practice served me well, keeping my 60 year old body in shape for taking a wide stance on some rocks and bending down to pick up a plastic bag.  Just a couple of steps later my left foot slipped off its rock.  I had a quick flash of worry about falling on the rocks, but instincts were in charge and my balance was good enough.  I ended up standing in about six inches of water, upright, but with wet, cold feet.

I made my way a little farther downstream, picking up several bottles for my recycle bag.  I needed to get rid of the several other pieces of trash I'd found, so I climbed out of the creek bed and walked down to the nearest trash bin.  Then I went back to the stream to see if there were more bottles.

In the park, the stream tries to hold onto its original character as a pretty forest stream.  It used to flow from about Georgia Avenue a mile to the south, but developers turned it from a stream into a storm sewer, burying the pretty meandering creek beneath a layer of asphalt, hidden until it exits a culvert at the end of Edgevale Rd and flows in its own stream bed down to Sligo Creek.  Where the water flows, it looks fresh and clear.  But in the still pools there's an oily grayness and odor, from the vehicle residues that accumulate on the roads and wash downstream with each storm.

As I made my way upstream, finding more plastic bottles, Red Bull cans, and other refuse, I startled a pair of mallards that had stopped in the stream for a rest.  They flew a little ways upstream and settled in again.  It saddened me that they had to swim in the gray, oil stained water, instead of a clear, flowing stream.  

This little tributary of Sligo Creek is no different than dozens of others.  The watershed paved over, the streams confined to underground pipes that carry the oily waste and litter of us - who, no longer blessed with the beauty of a flowing natural stream, forget that it every existed and give no thought to the impact downstream of what we throw away.

To the pair of mallards:  I'm sorry that I disturbed you, and I'm sorry that we didn't give you a clean, healthy stream to rest in.  I hope you find better on your journey.