Birds Returning

Here in Wheaton, Illinois, the snow is melting, and the birds are returning. I’ve been hearing them sing since Valentine’s Day. As March begins, I’ve been noticing red cardinals and chickadees. It’s wonderful! I know from listening to them that life and light are coming back into the world. The naked trees outside are going to bud with leaves and flowers soon. The whole landscape will change! Every year, it’s like magic. It’s so beautiful and amazing: the rebirth of the world.

I’ve been reading an Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets Book called On Wings of Song: Poems about Birds edited by J.D. McClatchy. The first poem in the collection is lovely:

“Short Circuit”

For no reason,
all at once,

a dove and a jay
swerve and land

at opposite ends
of the clothesline,

and the clothes–mine,
all mine!–commence

to dance with reckless
love and joy.

Daniel Hall

The poem is delicate and spare, as if influenced by the Imagists, and it immediately evokes delight in my heart!

Even as I’m writing this, I look up, and two separate flocks of geese go flying into the blue depths of the sky in their V-formations. Geese and sparrows I’ve enjoyed all winter, but now, even more birds will return. I love the sights and sounds of wild birds returning!

I hope everyone I know can open their eyes and ears and enjoy them, too, wherever they may be, whatever kind they may be. In California, where I go will go soon, I will look for hummingbirds. What will you look for?