I love these raw moist dawns with a thousand birds you hear but can’t quite see in the mist. ~Jim Harrison “Another Country”
The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn, As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on, Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roam In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home. ~Georgia Douglas Johnson from The Heart of a Woman and Other Poems
In those raw moments before dawn when a glow gently tints the inside of the horizon’s eyelids, the black of midnight waxes to merely shadow, the worries of nighttime forgotten amid a joyful chorus of unseen singers.
A gloaming dusk fades into a gleaming dawn, backlit silhouettes stark and still as a drowsing world slowly opens her eyes and greets this new and glorious morn.
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I know this sound, first birds of morning. As a child, I waited for hours for the drape of night to roll up again. Leaning into the first hint of the fresh day, the fragile lace of hesitant light, the receding darkness dappled with bird song, able at last to close my eyes. I know this sound, some kind of redemption, waking me from scattered sleep, a healing fragment even as the work of the previous day marks my bones in notches. Night leaves its small fur as the dawn pushes, as the birds persist, and morning unfurls like a promise you hoped someone would keep. ~Susan Moorhead “First Light” from Carry Darkness, Carry Light
Our February farm sunrises have always been full of promise over the three decades we’ve been here. The birds are waking earlier each day and when mornings are soaked, dripping with light and color, the air itself is alive.
Nothing though quite matches the phenomenon in February 2015 (top photo) when a fall streak hole or “key hole” cloud formed over nearby foothills. It looked to me as if angels were bursting through an unfurling break in heaven’s moving veil. Though it didn’t last long, it was seen for miles around us.
When morning breaks the night, it is like the first morning which came into being with His Words:
“Let there be light” and there continues to be the most amazing light…
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Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come– ~Chinese Proverb
photo by Harry Rodenberger
I heard a wood thrush in the dusk Twirl three notes and make a star— My heart that walked with bitterness Came back from very far.
Three shining notes were all he had, And yet they made a starry call— I caught life back against my breast And kissed it, scars and all. ~Sara Teasdale, featured in “The Wood” in Earth Song
…then came a sound even more delicious than the sound of water. Close beside the path they were following, a bird suddenly chirped from the branch of a tree. It was answered by the chuckle of another bird a little further off. And then, as if that had been a signal, there was chattering and chirruping in every direction, and then a moment of full song, and within five minutes the whole wood was ringing with birds’ music, and wherever Edmund’s eyes turned he saw birds alighting on branches, or sailing overhead or chasing one another or having their little quarrels or tidying up their feathers with their beaks. ~C.S. Lewis from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Their song reminds me of a child’s neighborhood rallying cry—ee-ock-ee—with a heartfelt warble at the end. But it is their call that is especially endearing. The towhee has the brass and grace to call, simply and clearly, “tweet”. I know of no other bird that stoops to literal tweeting. ~Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven. ~Emily Dickinson in an 1885 letter to Miss Eugenia Hall
I need reminding that what I offer up from my heart predicts what I will receive there.
If I’m grumbling and falling apart like a dying vine instead of a vibrant green tree~~~ coming up empty and hollow with discouragement, entangled in the cobwebs and mildew of worry, only grumbling and grousing~~~ then no singing bird will come.
It is so much better to nurture the singers of joy and gladness with a heart budding green with grace and gratitude, anticipatory and expectant.
My welcome mat is out and waiting.
The symphony can begin any time now…
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Every spring I hear the thrush singing in the glowing woods he is only passing through. His voice is deep, then he lifts it until it seems to fall from the sky. I am thrilled. I am grateful. Then, by the end of morning, he’s gone, nothing but silence out of the tree where he rested for a night. And this I find acceptable. Not enough is a poor life. But too much is, well, too much. Imagine Verdi or Mahler every day, all day. It would exhaust anyone. ~Mary Oliver “In Our Woods, Sometimes a Rare Music ” from “A Thousand Mornings”
What does it say about me that six months ago, in the darkness of December mornings, I was yearning for the early sunrises of June but once I’m well into the June calendar, these early mornings are no longer so compelling? It confirms my suspicion that I’m incapable of reveling in the moment at hand, something that would likely take years of therapy to undo. I’m sure there is some deep seated issue here, but I’m too sleep deprived to pursue it.
My eyes popped open this morning at 4:17 AM, aided and abetted by vigorous birdsong in the trees surrounding our farm house. There was daylight sneaking through the venetian blinds at that unseemly hour as well. Once the bird chorus started, with one lone chirpy voice in the apple tree by our bedroom window, it rapidly became a full frontal onslaught symphony orchestra from all manner of avian life-forms, singing from the plum, cherry, walnut, fir and chestnut. Sleep became irretrievable.
It would be such a poor life without the birdsong.
I remember wishing for early morning birdsong last December when it seemed the sun would never rise and the oppressive silence would never lift. I had conveniently forgotten those mornings a few years ago when we had a flock of over a dozen young roosters who magically found their crows very early in the morning a mere 10 weeks after hatching. Nothing before or since could match their alarm clock expertise after 4 AM. No barbecue before or since has tasted as sweet (apologies to my vegan/vegetarian readers, but too much was too much).
So I remind myself how bad it can really be; this morning’s backyard birdsong was a veritable symphony in comparison.
I already need a nap.
Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. ~Rabindranath Tagore
photo by Harry Rodenberger
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Only a flicker Over the strained time-ridden faces Distracted from distraction by distraction Filled with fancies and empty of meaning…
Not here Not here the darkness, in this twittering world...
After the kingfisher’s wing Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still At the still point of the turning world. ~T.S. Eliot – excerpts from Burnt Norton, first of the Four Quartets
Their song reminds me of a child’s neighborhood rallying cry—ee-ock-ee—with a heartfelt warble at the end. But it is their call that is especially endearing. The towhee has the brass and grace to call, simply and clearly, “tweet”. I know of no other bird that stoops to literal tweeting. ~Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
A hundred thousand birds salute the day:– One solitary bird salutes the night: Its mellow grieving wiles our grief away, And tunes our weary watches to delight; It seems to sing the thoughts we cannot say, To know and sing them, and to set them right; Until we feel once more that May is May, And hope some buds may bloom without a blight. This solitary bird outweighs, outvies, The hundred thousand merry-making birds Whose innocent warblings yet might make us wise Would we but follow when they bid us rise, Would we but set their notes of praise to words And launch our hearts up with them to the skies. ~Christina Rossetti “A Hundred Thousand Birds”
Eliot didn’t have in mind future tweets on 21st century Twitter when he wrote Burnt Norton in 1935. He was far more concerned about the concept of Time and redeeming our distraction from connecting to God Himself, the “still point” source of the natural and creative order of all things. He uses the analogies of a garden of flowers and singing birds, a graveyard, and most disturbingly, a subway train of empty-souled people traveling in the Tube under London in the dark.
Eliot was predicting an unknowable future. Great Britain was facing a second war with Germany, but nearly a century later, we live 24/7 in a “twittering world” war of empty words and darkness through devices we carry with us at all times. Eliot, critical of the dehumanizing technology of his time, was prescient enough to foresee how modern technology might facilitate our continued fall from grace and distract us from the source of our redemption.
Perhaps Rossetti understands best. When birdsong begins on our farm in June at 4 AM in the apple, cherry, chestnut, and walnut trees outside our bedroom windows, I am swept away from my dreams by the distraction of wakening to music of the created order among the branches surrounding me, immersed in the beauty of dew-laden blooms and cool morning air.
Once a hundred thousand birds settle into routine conversation after twenty minutes of their loudly tweeted greetings of the day, I settle too, sitting bleary-eyed at my computer to navigate the twittering world of technology which is too often filled with fancies, or meanness, or, most often, completely empty of meaning altogether.
Yet, each morning as my heart is launched by the warbling songs outside my window, I’m determined to dismiss the distraction of the tweets and twitters on my screen.
Not here will darkness be found on this page, if I can keep it at bay. I want to answer light to light and light with light.
No darkness here.
I hear a bird chirping, up in the sky I’d like to be free like that spread my wings so high I see the river flowing water running by I’d like to be that river, see what I might find
I feel the wind a blowin’, slowly changing time I’d like to be that wind, I’d swirl and the shape sky I smell the flowers blooming, opening for spring I’d like to be those flowers, open to everything
I feel the seasons change, the leaves, the snow and sun I’d like to be those seasons, made up and undone I taste the living earth, the seeds that grow within I’d like to be that earth, a home where life begins
I see the moon a risin’, reaching into night I’d like to be that moon, a knowing glowing light I know the silence as the world begins to wake I’d like to be that silence as the morning breaks
He does-n’t know the world at all Who stays in his nest and does-n’t go out. He does-n’t know what birds know best Nor what I sing a-bout, Nor what I sing a-bout, Nor what sing a-bout: That the world is full of love-li-ness.
When dew-drops spar-kle in the grass And earth is a-flood with mor-ning light. light A black-bird sings up-on a bush To greet the dawn-ing af-ter night, the dawn-ing af-ter night, the dawn-ing af-ter night. Then I know how fine it is to live.
Hey, try to o-pen your heart to beau-ty; Go to the woods some-day And weave a wreath of me-mory there. Then if tears ob-scure your way You’ll know how won-der-ful it is To be a-live.
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I know what you planned, what you meant to do, teaching me to love the world, making it impossible to turn away completely, to shut it out completely ever again – it is everywhere; when I close my eyes, birdsong, scent of lilac in early spring, scent of summer roses: you mean to take it away, each flower, each connection with earth – why would you wound me, why would you want me desolate in the end, unless you wanted me so starved for hope I would refuse to see that finally nothing was left to me, and would believe instead in the end you were left to me. ~Louise Glück “Vespers”(one of ten Vespers poems)
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; ~Psalm 130:5
Mid-spring days like this: bright, so promising with potential, birdsong constantly in the air, scent of orchard blossoms, lilacs, early roses and a flush of color everywhere…
how can I not love the world so much I never want to leave it?
Yet I must hold this loosely. It is but a tiny show of the glories to come, of what You have waiting for me next.
I am wounded with the realization that I must eventually let this go.
I hold onto the hope that won’t be found in all this beauty and lushness, the fulfilling hope that can only be found in my relationship with You as my Father and Creator.
You provide only a taste here so that I know what I starve for, starved with hope for what You have in store.
I will wait for you I will wait for you in the end You were left for me.
Amen and Amen.
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I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,— When he beats his bars and he would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings— I know why the caged bird sings! ~Paul Dunbar from “Sympathy”
…the goldfinch comes, with a twitching chirrup A suddenness, a startlement,at a branch end Then sleek as a lizard, and alert and abrupt, She enters the thickness,and a machine starts up Of chitterings, and of tremor of wings, and trillings – The whole tree trembles and thrills It is the engine of her family. She stokes it full, then flirts out to a branch-end Showing her barred face identity mask
Then with eerie delicate whistle-chirrup whisperings She launches away, towards the infinite… ~Ted Hughes from “The Laburnum Top”
The free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom. ~Maya Angelou from “Caged bird”
The 4 AM moment of this waning night before the first bird awakes to sing – a solemn silence holds its breath till broken by chitters and tweets.
Like a full breast tingles with readiness to flow until emptied – this wave of quiet builds before toppling forward in barely contained abundance, saturating our ears.
The Conductor’s baton rises to ready the multi-voiced chorus – awaking voices, pleading, spill from a thousand thousand perches.
My anticipation rises for for such a prayer uncaged and free – cascading from overnight stillness into an explosive unmistakeable dawn.
Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. ~Rabindranath Tagore
...then came a sound even more delicious than the sound of water. Close beside the path they were following, a bird suddenly chirped from the branch of a tree. It was answered by the chuckle of another bird a little further off. And then, as if that had been a signal, there was chattering and chirruping in every direction, and then a moment of full song, and within five minutes the whole wood was ringing with birds’ music, and wherever Edmund’s eyes turned he saw birds alighting on branches, or sailing overhead or chasing one another or having their little quarrels or tidying up their feathers with their beaks. ~C.S. Lewis from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Every spring I hear the thrush singing in the glowing woods he is only passing through. His voice is deep, then he lifts it until it seems to fall from the sky. I am thrilled. I am grateful.
Then, by the end of morning, he’s gone, nothing but silence out of the tree where he rested for a night. And this I find acceptable. Not enough is a poor life. But too much is, well, too much. Imagine Verdi or Mahler every day, all day. It would exhaust anyone. ~Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings
photo by Harry Rodenberger
Their song reminds me of a child’s neighborhood rallying cry—ee-ock-ee—with a heartfelt warble at the end. But it is their call that is especially endearing. The towhee has the brass and grace to call, simply and clearly, “tweet”. I know of no other bird that stoops to literal tweeting. ~Annie Dillard,Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven. ~Emily Dickinson in an 1885 letter to Miss Eugenia Hall
What does it say about me that in the darkness of December mornings, I yearn for the early sunrises of June but once I’m firmly into the June calendar, it no longer is so compelling? It confirms my suspicion that I’m incapable of reveling in the moment at hand, something that would likely take years of therapy to undo. I’m sure there is some deep seated issue here, but I’m too sleep deprived to pursue it.
My eyes popped open this morning at 4:17 AM, spurred by vigorous birdsong in the trees surrounding our farm house. There was daylight sneaking through the venetian blinds at that unseemly hour as well. Once the bird chorus starts, with one lone chirpy voice in the apple tree by our bedroom window, it rapidly becomes a full frontal onslaught symphony orchestra from the plum, cherry, poplar, walnut, fir and chestnut. Sleep is irretrievable.
This might be something I would ordinarily appreciate but last night nearby pastures roared past midnight with the house-shaking rumble of heavy tractors and trucks chopping and hauling fresh green grass destined for silage.
Only a few months ago I remember wishing for early morning birdsong when it seemed the sun would never rise and the oppressive silence would never lift. I conveniently forget those mornings years ago when we had a dozen young roosters who magically found their voices very early in the morning a mere 10 weeks after hatching. Nothing before or since could match their alarm clock expertise after 4 AM. No barbecue before or since has tasted as sweet.
So I remind myself how bad it can really be and today’s backyard birdsong is a veritable symphony in comparison.
Even so, I already need a nap, yet a full day of clinic awaits. Ah, first world problems of a farmer/doctor/sleep-deprived human.
Bird on the bare branch, flinging your frail song on the bleak air, tenuous and brave – like love in a bleak world, and like love, pierced with everlastingness! O praise that we too may be struck through with light, may shatter the barren cold with pure melody and sing for thy sake till the hills are lit with love and the deserts come to bloom. ~Jane Tyson Clement from The Heart’s Necessities
Birdsong starts around 4:15 AM these days – at first gentle twittering and chirping in the near-dark becoming a full-throated Hallelujah chorus as the sun overcomes the horizon.
Visitors to our farm can’t quite get used to waking to the birds tuning up loudly every morning when this insistent symphony is launched. It is impossible to ignore by diving under the blankets and covering our head with pillows — nor should we.
I for one appreciate the reminder we should wake up singing to the glory of the sunrise. The light has returned. That is surely something to shout about.
I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June. ~L. M. Montgomery from Anne of the Island
Each month is special in its own way: I tend to favor April and October for how the light plays on the landscape during transitional times — a residual of what has been with a hint of what lies ahead.
Then there is June. Dear, gentle, full blown and overwhelming June. Nothing is dried up, there is such a rich feeling of ascension into lushness of summer combined with the immense relief of tight schedules loosening.
And the light, and the birdsong and the dew and the greens — such vivid verdant greens.
As lovely as June is, 30 days is more than plenty or I would become completely saturated. Then I can be released from my sated stupor to wistfully hunger for June for 335 more.
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