At Last, Spring!

Please forgive the geo-centricity. I realize full well that the summer is coming to an end in the Southern Hemisphere and that in the Southern US Spring has already unfolded. But here, in this wooded corner where New York runs out and Massachusetts begins, the mild winter seems at last to have run its course. There are no more storms predicted in the immediate future. And hope abounds that the end of winter may actually have arrived.

Today I went for a walk. I live in Columbia County, in eastern New York. The ground in the fields was wet but not fully frozen, the pond is still frozen, the grass is still brown, and it was about 40 degrees and overcast. I was looking for signs that Spring really was coming.

I know that the Solstice is on March 20, 2008. I should be able to find some sign of the impending change of season, if I look for it, right? I couldn't find it.

But this evening was a different story. For the first time this year I heard the referee's whistle song of the red wing blackbird. the bird was in the top of a bare tree. It was whistling. I could see the red and yellow chevron on its wings.

A Redwing Blackbird

If you've never heard the Redwing Blackbird, try this. The sound I'm hearing is called the "okalee call." It's about setting out a new territory for the year.

In this corner of the world, the redwing blackbird is the very first sign of Spring. Before crocuses. Before paperwhites. Before anything. In fact, its basketball referee whistle call usually coincides with the beginning of March Madness. The selections for the NCAA tournament haven't come yet. The birds are a little early this year.

And so, in celebration of the fact there is a sign that at long, long last spring is about to emerge, and as important, that the northeastern winter is on its last legs, I offer you ee cummings:

in Just- spring when the world is mud- luscious the little lame baloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddyandbill come running from marbles and piracies and it's spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer old baloonman whistles far and wee and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's spring and the goat-footed

baloonMan whistles far and wee

Join me in gratitude far and wee for the coming of Springtime.

09/09/09 And A Bird

Today's an auspicious day. Look first at the date and time. It's all nines.

I've been in Mexico for more than two weeks writing. And, thank you thank you thank you, I have finished the first draft of my novel, Tulum. And I've sent it out to two writer friends to read. I want to be sure that it's worth continuing with. It, of course, will need an agent and/or a publisher and some reworking and editing. All the usual things that turn coal into diamonds. I will get to that after my friends have read it and after I've honed it a little more.

I'm not going to spoil it now: it's about an American expat with a shady past who's been hiding in Tulum, Mexico for a decade and his making friends with a Mayan Curandero who is his neighbor. Their friendship is very playful. The book is set in Tulum, Cuba and the Mayan Riviera of Mexico. That's all I'm telling for now.

When I was in Ireland at the end of April, I received a very strong message from The Hag, The Crone to finish the first draft of this book by mid September. Or else. There would be no excuses, no extensions of time, no dogs eating my homework. The message was that I had to finish this up without further delays. So today, 9/9/09, I have met that deadline. I am relieved. I don't expect I will taste the lash that was implicit in the April message I received. Thank goodness.

I've had a wonderful solitary week of taking very long walks, swimming, and writing. The writing has required me to go on very long walks on the beach in the forest. When things were getting stiff, or sore, or congested, I stopped to walk.

Bahia Soliman, just north of Tulum, where I've been has been virtually deserted. Almost no one else is here. It is extremely quiet, and the weather has been absolutely perfect. Hot and sunny every day. In fact, the area could use some rain. We've had only one brief shower while I've been here. I am delighted to have had this produtive time here.

Throughout the week I've had repeated sightings of a particular kind of bird that keeps showing up to watch me, to hang out with me, to sing. It's called a "social flycatcher." It lives primarily in Mexico and Central America. It's a very beautiful bird:



I assume it's called "social" because it doesn't immediately fly away from people, though it does keep its distance. It has a sweet but simple song. It likes to be near the ocean, but it's also happy in the selva. And it likes to sit on wires and sing.

Since I finished my first draft I haven't seen any of these birds again. I wonder why that is.

Dr. Doolittle

Borges continues to delight and amaze me. In his story, Shakespeare's Memory (La Memoria de Shakespeare)(1983), we find the following:

"In Punjab," said the major in the course of our conversation, "a fellow once pointed out a beggar to me. Islamic legend apparently has it, you know, that King Solomon owned a ring that allowed him to understand the language of the birds. And this beggar, so everyone believed, had somehow come into possession of that ring. The value of the thing was so beyond all reckoning that the poor bugger could never sell it, and he died in one of the courtyards of the mosque of Wazil Khan, in Lahore."

What happened to the ring? It was lost, it's in some secret hiding place in the mosque, it's on the finger of someone living where there are no birds. The story continues,

It was at that point that Daniel Thorpe spoke up. He spoke, somehow, impersonally, without looking at us. His English had a peculiar accent, which I attributed to a long stay in the East.

"It is not a parable, " he said. "Or if it is, it is nonetheless a true story. There are things that have a price so high they can never be sold.

The story will eventually explain Thorpe's "peculiar accent." And much more. And the ring that allows the wearer to understand the language of the birds will be turned into a metaphor for something equally improbable, but for me, the story kindled the desire for such a wonderful decoder ring.

It is the earliest of Spring here. The birds have returned from their long winter travels. I can hear them singing. Whenever I hear them I wish, beyond all hope, that I had that long, lost ring of King Solomon, that I knew what the birds were saying, that I could hear about their journeys to Central America, that I could hear about their lives.

At Long Last, Spring!

cross posted to docuDharma

This morning I went for a long walk with my faithful dog friend. We live in Columbia County, in eastern New York in the foothills of the Massachusetts Berkshires. The ground in the fields was wet but not frozen, the grass is still brown, and it was about 35 degrees and overcast. We were looking for signs that Spring really was coming.

I know that the Solstice is on March 20, 2008 at 1:48 am EDT. We should be able to find some sign of the impending change of season, if we look for it, right?

Yes! This morning for the first time this year I heard the referee's whistle song of the red wing blackbird.


A Redwing Blackbird

If you've never heard the Redwing Blackbird, try this. The sound I'm hearing is called the "okalee call." It's about setting out a new territory for the year.

In this corner of the world, the redwing blackbird is the very first sign of Spring. Before crocuses. Before paperwhites. Before anything. In fact, its basketball referee whistle call usually coincides with the beginning of March Madness. The selections for the NCAA tournament aren't until tomorrow. The birds are a little early this year.

And so, in celebration of the fact there is a sign that at long, long last spring is about to emerge, and as important, that the northeastern winter is on its last legs, I offer you ee cummings:

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little lame baloonman


whistles far and wee


and eddyandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring


when the world is puddle-wonderful


the queer
old baloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing


from hop-scotch and jump-rope and


it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed


baloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

Join me in gratitude far and wee for the coming of Springtime.

Hope

Melodious Blackbird

I sat under the flowering tree with a cold beer bottle in my hand, and to my surprise, I saw a bird on the ground near the wall. It was unable to fly. When I approached it, it flapped its right wing awkwardly, and fell pathetically and defenselessly on its side. Then it tried desperately to scramble away from me. It wasn’t able to. It’s wing was broken. It had a greenish tint to its ruffled neck and was otherwise plain brown. I don’t know what kind of bird it was. I imagined because its body was so ordinary that it was one of those birds with a beautiful, heartrending song. I left it alone, hoping that maybe it would regain its strength, or it would be rescued by its mother, or it would somehow fly away. I hoped that the neighborhood dogs wouldn’t find it. Or the cats or the lizards or crabs. I would keep an eye on it. I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to it.
I wondered whether it had fallen from its nest in the wind or had been hit by a swaying branch in mid flight. I wondered about hope. “Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all.” I fell asleep in the heat in my white plastic chair. I don’t know how long I slept.
Some time later, I saw that the bird had died. It lay on the sand. It didn’t move when I touched it. It was still warm, soft, almost weightless, shiny and motionless not far from where I first saw it. I buried it in my yard. It didn’t need a very big hole.
I wondered what this meant, if this inexplicable, silent death and burial might be a coded message of some kind. But I had no idea what it could mean or who would have sent it or if it were addressed to me. I didn’t think any more about the poem.

from a novel in progress