February 11, 2012

Windy and cold, bright sun, pink and blue sky, the air cold and clear.  The north wind jangling all the chimes, making sparks of light in the yard as well as all the different notes.   Winter has returned for a visit, who knows how long it will stay but this morning it has arrived with all the fanfares the wind can provide.  The heat is running and running, a sure sign not only of greater cold but wind pushing that cold into every crevice.  You can feel it pouring off the windows and doors.  Good thing for us it's not all this cold all that often.  Not that this cold compares with cold up north, it's just cold for our semi-tropical envrionment.

After a week with few birds, this morning we have black and white.  Three crows inhabit the maple this morning, cawing over and over, their black bodies shining slick in the early sun.  They are like crabby old men with whiskey-and-smoke voices, grumbling at each other and complaining to the world that it's cold and windy and the sun is too bright.  They are loud and fascinating; you can't fail to notice them when they are around, as they call attention to themsleves with their talk.  According to old rhymes about crows, three crows together signify health, or mirth, a wedding, or a girl.  This morning I will take them to mean mirth as they seem to be enjoying themsleves.

The white was a large common egret sailing across the back yard to land for a moment near the cane and then walk out to the grass along the edge of the road and disappear into the ditch on the other side.  They are so lovely, silent on their broad white wings, they always surprise me when they arrive.   They are elegant and awkward, with their backward facing knees, and long graceful neck.  It is said that the common or great egret was hunted nearly to extinction by those who valued their lovely feather for hats.  I'm glad they have recovered; there are a lot of them here, common and cattle egrets both, but you rarely see them in the neighborhood, mostly of they inhabit the bayou and the water's edge.   I am glad every time I get to see them out the window.  It's like a blessing to the day, even if they stay only a few moments, they take your breath away when they lift into the air on those wide white wings.

I have found several poems about egrets, but today this one by John Ciardi says most how I feel being blessed by one this morning.  Egrets and herons are the same family, and the common egret is also called the great white heron.  I have a statue of one, stone still yet embodying the grace of neck and slender elegance.

White Heron

What lifts the heron leaning on the air
I praise without a name. A crouch, a flare,
a long stroke through the cumulus of trees,
a shaped thought at the sky — then gone. O rare!
Saint Francis, being happiest on his knees,
would have cried Father! Cry anything you please

But praise. By any name or none. But praise
the white original burst that lights
the heron on his two soft kissing kites.
When saints praise heaven lit by doves and rays,
I sit by pond scums till the air recites
It's heron back. And doubt all else. But praise.

John Ciardi

And so this morning I have had black and white blessings, crows and an egret, the racous, shining black, and the silent elegant white, and both were welcome, and both cherished.