To Wild Mothers
by David Stalling I have learned my lessons from mothers with claws, with wings, with hooves, with teeth sharp as fence wire and eyes that said, That’s close enough. Once, in grizzly country, a mother bear hit the earth like thunder, a bluff charge, all fury and warning, because somewhere behind her stood her cubs learning the world through the safety of her shadow. That bear taught me that love can sound like an avalanche. Another time in South Carolina, I reached into an old rowboat at the pond, thinking only of rust and forgotten things, when water exploded beside me. Cottonmouth. Fast as bad luck. She struck my blue jeans, fangs catching denim instead of skin, coiling hard around my leg while hidden nearby lay the reason for her rage; a nest full of young. I have seen cow moose, and cow elk, lower their heads and charge like freight trains because a calf stood trembling behind them. I have had a blue jay dive-bomb my skull again and again, all feathers and fury, because I wandered too near her nest. And a seagull once screamed at me with the fury of a storm-tossed ocean for daring to step too close to her chicks on the sand. Wild mothers do not negotiate. They do not care about your pride, your plans, your excuses. Their love is immediate, ancient, absolute. And honestly, I respect that. Because every bluff charge, every warning cry, every strike, swoop, stomp, and hiss comes from the same sacred place: The fierce refusal to let harm reach their offspring. So this Mother’s Day, I offer my utmost admiration and respect, not only to the mothers in houses and homes, but to the wild ones too: The grizzlies in the timber, the snakes in the reeds, the moose in the willows, the elk in mountain meadows, the blue jays in the oak trees, the seagulls on the Atlantic shore. Loving mothers. Caring mothers. Dangerous mothers when they need to be. The wild has taught me many things, but maybe the clearest lesson is this: There is no force on Earth more fearless than a mother protecting her young.