Slowly the trail clearing work continues. All the while I was squatting on my haunches this afternoon rooting out buffaloberry bushes, I kept thinking about Alexander the Great's captain of the guard. Caught sleeping when he was supposed to be on duty, he was brought before the king and sentenced to death.
Desperate, he thought of a wild ploy to save his neck. Knowing how besotted the king was with his great war horse Bucephalus, the captain cried out as the guards moved to take him away, "Wait! Majesty, you are about to destroy a unique talent. There is something I can do that no other man can accomplish." The king laughed and asked, "And what might that be?" The captain replied, "I can teach your great horse Bucephalus to sing! You would ride to war and confront your enemies as Bucephalus chanted songs of battle!" "And how long might such a teaching take?" the great king replied. "Sire, 'tis hard to say, a year, two years…" "Very well!" replied the king, "a year you shall have. A year and a day hence you shall be brought again before me, in the company of Bucephalus. If he will sing for you, I shall remit your punishment. If not, on that very day your head shall be struck off. Guards, take him to the stable."
The next day, as the captain sat in the box stall of Bucephalus, solemnly singing songs of war at the great beast, one of the guards said, "Why do you thus demean yourself? You know as well as I that horses cannot be taught to sing. Wherefore, then, this foolish game? Can you not face death like a soldier?"
The captain replied to the guard, "Friend, in the course of a year much can happen. The king might die. I might die. And who knows? Perhaps the horse will learn to sing!"
And as I uprooted berry bushes and cut back willows I could not help thinking, it has now been a year since the confrontation at Seeley Lake. Nobody has died. And the horse hasn't learnt to sing…
Posted by jjeffrey at August 31, 2003 12:23 AM