It is a glorious spring morning in one of the Travis Country greenbelts. Sunlight dapples the ground under oaks and cedar. A man and his wife move through the underbrush, their objective is to reach the dry detention pond behind their home. They make slow progress as he keeps stopping to break off dead branches which he considers a hazard to his eyes. She is more interested in the flora and fauna and often pauses to watch forest deer or to stare up into the overhead canopy to catch glimpses of the various birds who serenade them.  She, joyful but unsuccessful, tries to interpret their song,  – “peeeek-a-boo”, “tweet -tweet’. They are both acutely aware of the union of life; and the song of the universe for even the limestone rocks in a dry stream bed communicates with them. At each turn,, they head toward the brighter patches of sunlit greenery where there is less undergrowth.

At one small open area they encounter a pile of limestone masonry blocks. She comments that they must have been dumped by one of the home builders twenty years ago. He smiles,

“They are glad that we found them. I hear their talk.”

“You hear their talk? So, what do they say?”

“They commiserate about their expectation of twenty years ago. Harry reminds Heloise of their high expectations.’

“Harry and Heloise?”

Yes, Harry and Heloise, like in a children’s story. Anyway, they reminisce about how they had hoped to be selected for the fireplace façade. Back then they speculated that it would always be comfortable, warm in winter and air conditioned in summer. Now, Heloise reminds Harry how they had rationalized that the exterior façade would be better, less likely to be renovated in the years ahead, more interesting commanding a good view of exterior activities.”

“You hear all that?”

“Yes, and there is more, right now they are miserable. They are still horrified to be dumped here to be overgrown by grasses and dirt. They beg us, me, to rescue them.”

“But they are here in the middle of the greenbelt, and we must be at least half a mile from home.”

They walk on, the man is quiet. His wife is silent to let him think. They are thankful for this small distraction from the seemingly never-ending dialogue about the ongoing corona virus pandemic. They emerge from the undergrowth into full sun-light and climb through the long grass to the top of the dirt dam surrounding their local storm water management ponds, from there they head to a man-made swale with a two-foot-wide concrete bed nestled in four-foot-tall grass. They follow the swale careful to avoid ant hills. A bird flies up out of the grass. The wife looks for its nest, but he is impatient and urges her on.

At the end of the swale they take an artificial path mown by their neighboring teenage boy. She thinks of it as a boredom path.  The previous day she watched their next-door neighbor’s son, a blond-headed high-schooler, make it with his lawnmower. When he finished his parent’s lawn, he opened their back gate and struck out. He appeared to be equipped with the attitude of an ancient Roman road builder, for his mown swathe ignored the terrain and took a straight line struck out of his yard, across a flat area, up and over the earth dam, across the dry detention pond and up the other side. At this point he had turned to take the same path back.

When the man and wife are close to their back yard, they leave the boy’s path and walk across an area of long thin grass waving seductively over an undercover of brilliant yellow wildflowers. They pause and look at each other at their gate.

“I’m going to rescue them!”

“You are what?”

“I’m going to rescue them and build a flower bed outside our dining-room window.”

“But how, they are half a mile away in an inaccessible place in the greenbelt?”

“I’ll use the red wheelbarrow.”

Over the next two days the man and red wheelbarrow make twelve miles of round trips to transport the limestone blocks to his garden. He reports to his wife on Harry and Heloise’s happiness at their rescue. He tells her,

“During the trip they ruminated about their destination. They agreed that nothing could be worse than twenty years of unfunctional abandon in the woods. They whispered, but I could still hear, when they prayed that they are not about to be taken to the City dump. They agreed with each other, the dump would be worse than green-belt abandon.”

“You heard all that?”

“Yes, it unfolds like a children’s story. They were relieved and happy when we reached the garden, and quite ecstatic when I stacked them in a neat pile next to my construction site.”

“So, they are happy?”

“Oh yes, very happy. Their voices inspire me to keep going.”

Construction goes slowly. The man is deliberate as he builds foundations and arranges the stones out to make sure that their idiosyncrasies are properly accounted for. At last reports to his wife.

“No rain is forecast. Everything is ready, construction starts tomorrow.”

It takes two days to build the wall, another two to fill the resultant bed with a proper mix of dirt, and compost, and yet another to plant and water. The man listens more to the faint gasps of the plants as he carefully places them. He is content, but when he turns to go inside to look at his accomplishment from indoors, he loses his ear. It is now that Harry and Heloise sing. Their voices join the song of the universe.