Towards the Nightingale

When morning arrives on birdsong, the day takes on a chipper hue. One can consider human imposition on nature when making such statements. Then again, why bother? There is something in the rising sound of “yes” in a spring melody that floods the present. That is it. As poetry arrives on budded branches and in the flashing of chatty brooks, it is easy to see how one's life is bound up in transient images. Personal feelings culled from the impersonal; we turn in this dance between noticing too much or not enough. In the end, or near the end, it all touches something so very mortal. Or, immortal? Philomela weaves her robe so that all in need of mending can be tended. Her restoration of voice comes through art and, ultimately, on the songbird's rise.

Winter now hangs weakened towards inevitability. I know the feeling. The fence will need repair and fresh paint this year, though I doubt the daisies will mind the wear. It has taken a few seasons in futility to see that the gardens and the yard never arrive at completion; they simply require the benevolence of tending. My season of outward care begins in the clearing away of winter's corpse. We bury the dead and life goes on regardless of what we think we know.

Sappho's nightingale prophet of spring – thank you as is and always

The Way is birthed open-handed and in the spring and summer, it is effortless. The lesson of my winter has always been a clenched fist fighting the cold roar, and until they are equal, I am listening to the birded chorus in rescued relief.