In the Language of Birds

“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”– E.B. White

I am taking a break from the woes of the world at least here in the following poetry offerings I’ve written this past week. I hope these poems bring you the “peace of wild things” as in Wendell Berry’s poem. I believe we must draw often from the well of beauty, of friendship, of community, and nature to replenish our spirits. Always, there’s tension between wanting to escape into the bliss of what is wondrous in this Spring unfolding and knowing I must stand up to the terrible battering and cruelty toward people and the natural world by this corrupt oligarchy.

Entering my second week of house and bird sitting for my friends Dawn and Ram within their wildlife haven, I’m often cocooned from the world. I did join a rally for science in nearby Newport (on the Oregon coast) this past Saturday, and will return this Saturday, April 19th to rally for Democracy. I met some wonderful people there. They have a van chock full of ready signs you can choose from to wave. No action is enough alone, but all are important.

Meanwhile, I’m beginning my days with dawn chorus listening, writing poetry, and a delightful hour of bird care for rescue parrots and lovebirds, filling feeders for the wild birds, and stewarding a flock of very happy egg-laying chickens. Then, I settle in to write my book–properly inspired. I could be writing a children’s book here in the spirit of E.B. White’s Trumpet of the Swan. Instead of swans, there are wood ducks.

Ready to take a breather? First, I can’t resist one more quote from the prescient E.B. White:

“I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.”

Pastorale

Robin shakes his wings,
sprays fog droplets, ready
to awaken this coastal dawn,
Hear cheery meeeeee!

Chickadee blinks plinks
pitter patter dee dee dee.
Hairy Woodpecker plucks a single
violin string, strung on a spider

web catching marsh dreams
in a jeweled orb. Song Sparrow
flutes a falling serenade
as Dark-eyed Juncos trill

wind chimes in the windless mist
stirred by flapping crow wings,
trickled in Pacific Wren piccolo
tucked by a perennial spring

deep within fir and alder draping
lichen, budding tender leaves,
startled by Steller’s Jay banter
emboldening the shrouded sun

over winding dark waters
where Wood Ducks lift up
squealing oooo-weeeee
over Red-winged Blackbirds
whistling, “mine is the sunlight

mine is the morning” arcing
up to twittering Tree Swallows
circling like arrows piercing fog
until sunlight strides through.

She is the spherical star blinding
and binding this avian orchestra
into one pastoral symphony
overflowing every beak.

In the Language of Birds

Flickers of remnant dreams waft
like flakes chipped by woodpeckers
chiseling their names as one last
whisp of whiskered night folds
under wings of crows swallowing
tidal rhythms of the not-so-far
ocean salting the new morning.

In this sanctuary praised by
Steller’s Jays finessing the dawn
in cobalt and black feathers, crests
crowning not frowning, I bliss
and bless by the winding creek
cosseting, buffering and binding
greening marshes woven by Red-winged

Blackbirds belting their true names
in the Alsean tongue of native
peoples displaced but not erased,
their chants of time immemorial
stirring beneath the polished gleam
of dark and deep waters where
Hooded Mergansers and Wood Ducks

glide the unhurried currents
as a skein of Canada Geese canopy
the muted sky in honking cacophonies,
where Tree Swallows twirl and turn
as a Rufous Hummingbird flares
a fiery tail and a White-Crowned Sparrow
flutes a flowing river of yearning.

Grateful Praise Grateful

Sylvan is feathery moss, fiddlehead ferns, spider silk radiant in sunlight
Sunlight drifting, splitting, languid and filtered by millions

Millions of hemlock needles where Chestnut-backed Chickadees glean
Glean twigs for juicy caterpillars in this shimmer of evergreen

Evergreen spraying in fountains of Pacific Wren song trilling involutions
Involutions of mystical evolution of this coastal forest humming

Humming for the beauty of the earth in every tangled thrumming
Thrumming in beetles, loquacious in flocks of Golden-crowned Kinglets

Kinglets tingling tastes of loamy nutty and resiny truffles calling I’m here
Here is hidden in bustling airy soil offering secrets to living as cycling

Cycling the dying, dead and renewing as chipmunks and squirrels dig
Dig for aromatic truffles dependent on this forest dependent on every strand

Strands sticky for catching and winding up prey, this interplay of nature
Nature entangled in tree roots tipped in fungi tapping the word kin

Kin carried in the mycelial network nurtured by the sun transformed
Transformed to energy by millions of needles fringing this spry day.

Once is Forever

Once I ran a race called Eleven Miles to Paradise in Montana along the Clark Fork River on a hilly rocky trail. My light feet dancing. Thinking not of stones but the spaces between for safe landings. Once I swayed on a rope two hundred feet off the ground in a fir tree embraced by lichens and flocks of Red Crossbills, suspended in the unknowing before the wildfire. Once I met my lover at the summit of Eagle Cap in the Wallowas. Our kisses tasted of salty tears and the world spun away like Gray-Crowned Rosy Finches whirling over alpine lakes, knowing only peaks and never valleys. Once I met my best girlfriend in a seedy basement bar in Missoula in graduate school and we danced only with each other. Paradise is not about once but always. Catch me when I break and I will catch you whenever you fall.

All photos by Marina Richie