SYBIL ROSEN THOMAS

Last month’s River Ramble offered a fictionalized version of a true story depicting an impromptu night spent on the Chattahoochee River: the father and son who floated down the dark water as they slept passed by the cabin where I, no doubt, lay sleeping, too. That got me thinking about my own experience of night on the river - moments I’m awake for, and the ones that wake me up.

There are innumerable nocturnal stirrings I will never see or hear. Only a few leave clues for the next morning: the overturned water bowl on the porch; opossum pawprints on a sandy beach; coyote scat - twisted at the ends and rife with fur - left in the drive. nition of “death”?

Sitting down in January to begin writing the next month’s Ramble, I note that the woods on the riverbank are silent at night, despite the current warm weather. Spring peepers chirp tentatively on balmy evenings which seems too soon, even for Georgia. By the time you read this mid-February, all will be changed. Even if it’s very cold between now and then, the birds pay more attention to the lengthening light, and will be determined to court. Though not much happens in the deep winter night, on Valentine’s Day dawn and dusk will thrum with the lovesongs of cardinals, wood thrushes, and phoebes. By the end of spring, the katydids, crickets, and cicadas will have taken over with a cacophony of rattles, buzzes, and whines that reverberates the darkness, drowns out the plashing river, and dissolves any mind willing to give itself up to the chaos.

My definition of life and death is simple. To me, life is a state of “consciousness”, an awareness of your being and environment. If my definition were correct, death would be the lack of consciousness, in other words, a dreamless sleep - not the worst of all options. But, wait. I also believe that there are those who, for whatever reason, cannot communicate so to an onlooker such a condition might be thought to be a “lack of consciousness”, but in reality, the subject may be fully conscious of his or her environment, but just cannot communicate. Given this understanding, can my definition be appropriate?

In 1980, the American Medical Association stated that “An individual who has sustained either: 1. Irreversible cessation of circulatory

And how to describe the otherworldly shriek of a great blue heron fishing off the shore?

The cry has woken me out of a deep sleep. My heart rate goes down once I move past images of wraiths and banshees, and remember the heron. Sometimes an owl - great horned or barred - perches on a limb outside the bedroom, so near I can catch every nuance of croak and garble in the slow complex hoots. One night, I was awakened by a pack of coyotes yipping on the fluvial spit on the other side of the water. The high howls and wails, and the intensity of their shared enthusiam, produces a frequency that goes right through you, invoking atavistic fears and undeniable awe.

The coyotes’ expression of wildness reaches deep into the buried reservoir of primal impulses our bodies harbor, whether we are aware of them or not. Their serenade is a summons to that original dwelling.

Rarely are there human voices on the river at night. Sometimes weekend partyers will land and respiratory function, or; 2. Irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem is dead.” This definition was accepted by the American Medical Association in 1980 and the American Bar Association in 1981.

This definition of death becomes critical involving organ transplants. Is it ethical to keep someone “alive”, heart beating, to remove their organs? Could this definition be about “the greater good” or about “money for transplants” and who but the Almighty can determine if a condition is “irreversible”? Transferable organs are best preserved when left inside of a braindead living body or a heart-beating cadaver. Do these bodies differ? Does prayer influence an outcome?

See ED WILSON page 21 on the same shoal the coyotes occupied. Like the coyote, their voices carry but not the shape of their words. Once, I heard a motorboat sputter, bump, and stall. From the direction and volume of the voices - one female, the other maleI knew the boat was up against the bank below the cabin. Should I go down with a flashlight and see if they needed help? The cadence of conversation revealed no panic or alarm, but rather amusement and crackles of flirtatious laughter. This wasn’t an emergency - it was a date! Pretty soon the motor roared up and off they went in a wake of lusty warmth.

Humans make their night presence known in other ways. In summer, a fishing boat may come quietly down the Chattahoochee around midnight, announced by a sweeping spotlight that scans the channel off the prow. Does the fisherman know that his light shines through the trees, projecting tangled shadows onto the ceiling and walls around my bed - a phantasmagori-

See RIVERRAMBLES page 23