Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

As a child, the narrator struggled to understand foreign languages. She believed that words in other languages were intended to signify English words. As an adult, she realizes that she faces the same trouble when attempting to decipher the language of birds. The mockingbird above her chimney warbles all day; the narrator agrees with scientists who suggest that birdsong is about more than laying claim to territory. She suggests that asking what the birds are saying is less important than asking what makes their song so beautiful.

As spring begins, the narrator tries to slow down and observe. It is April, and she daily checks the praying mantis egg case she brought home in February. She realizes that ants have found the case and devoured its contents. The narrator visits the woods and finds a pool with newts swimming in it. She dips her fingers into the water and lets the newts nibble at her skin. The trees have exploded with flowers and tiny leaves. Birds’ mouths are full of worms and insects. As the narrator walks home, she sees small children playing with an orange kitten named Sweet Dreams.

In May, the narrator feels stifled by the plants and heat. She visits the duck pond, which is capped with algae. The sight of it reminds her of a neighbor’s horse that died. The neighbor located a nearby fur farm that used dead horses as meat for its foxes, but the neighbor decided to haul the animal to a landfill. The pond is also like a landfill—covered in frogs. The pond is teeming with life: snails, turtles, muskrats, and herons.

In June the narrator watches her goldfish in the light of the window. She can see the fish’s blood moving in its tail. At night, as she lies in bed, she imagines watching the blood flow through her own veins. In the goldfish bowl, algae cover a plant called elodea. She washes the elodea. Under a microscope, she can see chloroplasts in its leaves. Chloroplasts hold chlorophyll, which gives plants their green color. Chlorophyll consists of 36 atoms that center around an atom of magnesium; if that magnesium is replaced with iron, chlorophyll becomes hemoglobin, which makes blood red.

As she sits and considers the goldfish and chlorophyll, the narrator swims in consciousness. Her mind is filled with thoughts of the giant water bug, the Osage orange tree, and the snakeskin. She considers how God goes about creation and compares his work to a sculptor, a starling, and a railroad worker. Creation deals in intricacy; the head of a single caterpillar holds 288 separate muscles. The narrator is obsessed with details like this; she finds that other people are less interested in this type of information. For her, the intricacies of creation speak to the meticulous craftsmanship of God.

In addition to the detailed complexity of creation, the narrator is struck by the variety: “[N]ot only did the creator create everything, but […] he is apt to create anything. He’ll stop at nothing” (136). While colors are limited, forms are limitless. The narrator examines the larva of an ordinary dragonfly, an example of the variety of forms. Rather than knowing all the names of every creature and landscape, the narrator hopes to understand their meaning. She recalls a dream she had the year before. She dreamed she was dead in a dark space with many stars. She saw a long strip of color that extended endlessly. She approached and looked at it closely. The longer she looked, the more the dots of color that comprised the band became apparent. These dots represented time, and she was filled with memories of place and experience.