May 18, 2012

Some mornings start with a bang some with a whimper, this morning it was two very different birds, the mockingbird right outside in the holly bush and an egret just passing through.  The mockingbird decided to start singing while it was still pitch black dark, the clock said 4:17 and he kept it up, the same series of songs over and over until I got up at 5:30.  I think as I sat down here to start this note, he moved around to the back yard and started singing again, mostly cardinal songs with occasional mourning dove, and the added spice of blue jay.  The egret flew in between the trees to land just under the maple and begin a careful inspection of the grass between the trees: not one of the cattle egrets but one of the taller common egrets, with a wing span of maybe four feet or so.  After a little bit, it moved elegantly down the driveway and out into the quiet street, its head bobbing with its long stride and occasionally looking left or right.  Then it vanished past the shed and the yard seemed a lot emptier than it had been only moments before.  Still, the mockingbird is out there, singing, and the bird that calls "cheater, cheater, cheater" is too.  It could be that one is another mockingbird and they are having a duel.

For light and the white wings of the egret . . .

From "The Hours of Darkness"

it is the light
that appears to change and be many
to be today
to flutter as leaves
to recognize the rings of trees
to come again
one of the stars is from
the day of the cowrie
one is from a time in the garden
we see the youth of the light
in all its ages
we see it as bright
points of animals
made long ago out of night

how small the day is
the time of colors
the rush of brightness

W. S. Merwin

That egret was like a star, like a constellation of brightness in the shadowed morning under the trees with their silent rings.  Its presence made the day seem wider, more open, white riding its wings like the shine of those stars in the night.  I suppose if you live where the night sky is full of the depth of stars that the day might seem smaller, but here, lit up by so many artificial stars, and usually clouded, the night sky is a lid you could sometimes reach out and touch.  It takes the shining of birds in the daylight to raise it up and make it more distant.