
I don’t have time to think and write this morning. We have company coming and the warning sirens of Dresden before the bombers blare shrilly from the roof tops. And yet…
I stepped out the back door to shake out the dog’s bedding, and stopped to listen:
The robin-like warble of the several scarlet tanagers who defend territories with benign melodies of possession; the Louisiana Waterthrush, who come early and stay late along the waterways and road, singing Sweet! Sweet! Chalybeate!; and for the first time this morning (though if I’d been listening, they’ve been around) the Indigo Buntings sing their couplets from the tallest trees–the dead snags of Hemlocks stark and skeletal over behind the barn.
The lull was brief, and there will not be much time for reverie because we are under siege. Some of us are. Others still try to make their peace with the order of things, and bird song, an offering accepted towards that end.
Right away, sir.