I see them most often on power lines, easy to spot, as they are so much larger than other birds perched on high.
Alone. What other bird would perch with a hawk?
Some of them have so much white plumage that I think of snowy owls (which do not live in this southern clime).
In recent weeks I’ve seen a hawk in the branches of a winter-bare tree.
Regal. Breathtakingly beautiful.
Raptors, living on prey. Solitary creatures, not socialites. Steeped in symbolism.
Ultimately they are creatures of intense focus, and that is the lens I will use now.
It occurs to me, while contemplating hawks, that what we focus on feeds us.
Not our stomachs. Our spirits. Our souls.
Everything we devour isn’t good.
It also comes out that way, somewhere, somehow.
Somewhere, somehow, I think it was the hawk that inspired me to give up negativity for Lent.
I don’t need to partake of it or serve it (the whole point being repentance and not returning to it again).
I stepped away from social media quite some time ago; not gone, exactly, just…distanced. Able to hone in, occasionally, for what’s really of value.
I’ve stopped dwelling in the shadows of this school year (a work in progress). Perhaps more hours of daylight have helped with this…the hawk doesn’t waste precious time rueing the daily grind of life. It just does it. Concentrating on the task at hand. Never losing direction. Knowing when and where to move; until then, waiting and watching. With wide perspective.
Of course all the challenges don’t just disappear (as the hawk surely knows).
But in shedding unnecessary weights, the heights are easier to obtain. The mental eye is clearer, sharper.
The Latin word focus meant “hearth, fireplace.” In the scientific Latin of the 17th century, the word is used to refer to the point at which rays of light refracted by a lens converge. Because rays of sunlight when directed by a magnifying glass can produce enough heat to ignite paper, a word meaning “fireplace” is quite appropriate as a metaphor to describe their convergence point. From this sense of focus have arisen extended senses such as “center of activity.”
Directed light, channeled energy…being a conduit.
My thoughts spin homeward, to the hearth and heart of my life.
And as I drive at the end of the day, my freer spirit soars like the hawk on high, wind ruffling the embers of its breast.
Red-shouldered hawk. Photo by my friend E. Johnson
*******
with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Story Challenge
Like crows, hawks use tools to get what they need.
Under the eaves a porch on the porch a chosen door
a porch sanctuary a chosen door from the other side, I hear
sanctuary: father finch feeding nesting mother from the other side, I hear a song of love
father finch feeding nesting mother on the porch a song of love under the eaves
Short clip of my house finches, which return every spring to nest in my door wreath (the finches don’t know that I purposely put out the twiggy grapevine wreaths they like best). Crank the volume to hear their beautiful voices. You might even catch a glimpse of wings as the father flies off to fetch more food for the mother. He will feed her until their little blue eggs hatch and then they’ll both feed their babies. In listening, it’s easy to understand how “charm” became the collective noun for finches and why they are said to symbolize joy.
“Adaptable, colorful, and cheery-voiced, House Finches are common from coast to coast today, familiar visitors to backyard feeders. Native to the Southwest, they are recent arrivals in the East. New York pet shop owners, who had been selling the finches illegally, released their birds in 1940 to escape prosecution; the finches survived, and began to colonize the New York suburbs. By 50 years later they had advanced halfway across the continent, meeting their western kin on the Great Plains.”
“House Finches feed their nestlings exclusively plant foods, a fairly rare occurrence in the bird world.”
These are things I have learned. I continue to learn the lessons of the finches as they fill my home and heart to overflowing with a rare, almost-otherworldly joy.
When you select it, ‘Merlin’ listens and tells you which birds it hears.
I already know the beautiful songs of house finches, cardinals, and Carolina wrens. The low, mournful coo of doves. I know birds of the night by sound: the haunting, onomatopoetic call of the whippoorwill in summer, the hair-raising screech and who? who? who? of owls. What other wonders are hidden in the woods surrounding my home?
And so it was one damp, drab morning that I stepped out on the back deck with my phone and opened up the bird wizard (the name Merlin is too good).
First bird heard:
CAW! CAW! CAW!
The words American crow popped up in the app.
Thanks, Merlin. That’s only the easiest bird sound in the world. I knew it as a little kid watching Kornfield Kounty in Hee Haw.
Globally speaking, however: Is there a bird more steeped in superstition, legend, and lore? Or with more conflicted symbolism?
Harbinger of death and sickness. Psychopomp, spiritual guide for the human soul. A sign of transformation, balance, wisdom, confidence, trickery… crows are even said to carry a person’s prayers to heaven.
They are scavengers but they cannot tear flesh open with their own beaks and have to wait for some other toothed predator to start the process; they’ve been known to lead wolves or other hunters to prey. Crows don’t dine exclusively on meat; they’ll eat “almost anything,” researchers say.
Scientists say that crows have big brains and are aware of their own thoughts. In Norse mythology, two crows (or ravens, depending on the source) whose names meant Thought and Memory rode the shoulders of Odin. Crows act with deliberation. They are keen observers. They use tools like sticks and shells when needed to get their food. They learn to recognize human faces and have been known to leave gifts such as pebbles or pretty shards of broken pottery as a thank you for humans who have fed them…
CAW! CAW! CAW!
Crows also prey on songbirds…
There’s Papa House Finch singing like Tevye on the roof of my house while Mama Finch is nestled on little blue eggs so perfectly hidden in the wreath on my front door…
Don’t even think about it, Crows. The finches are mine.
Yet.
In all my dreams about birds—for there’ve been many—I’ve not seen finches. Eagles, peacocks, owls, and whippoorwills (I think) have appeared.
And one bright-eyed crow, sitting in the gravel beside a car, with a bright green stone or ball, waiting to give it to me.
What does it mean?? That is the question…
CAW! CAW! CAW!
I feel pretty sure about this one thing: If a crow offers you a gift…take it.
One more bit of food for thought: The name Merlin has a controversial origin history itself… possibly derived from French merle, which means blackbird.
*******
with thanks to two fellow Slicers in the Two Writing Teachers community: Kim Johnson, for pointing me to the Great Backyard Bird Count, and Ms. Chiubooka (Cindy), for recently wondering what my take on crows would be.
We’re all in the daily Slice of Life Story Challenge together.
In Roman times, priests called augurs studied the activities of birds to divine the will of the gods. This practice of reading signs and omens was called taking auspices.
Likewise, many ancient legends depict the language of birds as perfect and divine; predating human speech, it was communicated by deities, understood by prophets and angels. Some say bird language was the original language n the Garden of Eden, spoken by Adam, Eve, and God.
I cannot speak to these mystical beliefs. But I agree there’s something of the sacred in birds.
I assumed I’d developed this affinity later in life. Birdwatching as an older person’s pastime. My mother-in-law loved birds. So did my grandmother. What is the correlation between aging and deriving such pleasure from birds? An acknowledgement that life in this world grows short, and the beautiful should be savored? Or something deeper? Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated, writes Terry Tempest Williams.
I’d forgotten that my love of birds began early in life. It all started with parakeets named Angel and Lucifer (how’s that for spiritual connections?). Angel was blue and white, sky-and-clouds. Lucifer was yellow and green. They were pets of my parents’ friends and after my first mesmerizing encounter, I begged for a parakeet. I got one for my sixth birthday. Solid yellow (although I’d wanted one like Angel). The pet shop folks boxed my bird in a carton decorated like a circus train, with little holes in the sides. Riding home in the car, I peered in to see a red-purple eye looking back at me…
Tweety lived until I was twelve.
I could never have a caged bird now.
They are meant to be free.
Living in a rural area offers daily doses of bird-awe, from the blue herons standing like statues in stillwater ponds to the snowy-winged hawks perched high on power lines…last week on my way to work, I felt lighter than I have in a while. It’s been an exceptionally trying year at school. It helps that there’s actually more daylight now that spring is on the way (I should have my vitamin D checked, perhaps). On this particular day last week, I sensed that good things are coming. I even said it to myself, so strong was the sense: Good things are coming. A little farther on, I happened to notice a large brown clump up in a bare tree by the road. A nest of leaves, maybe? Work of squirrels? But as I drew near, I saw a white head…a curved beak..
An eagle.
For the rest of that day I felt I had wings myself.
And then there is the return of the house finches, which, truth be told, never actually leave. One or two little birds have been sleeping in my door wreath this winter. They startled me a few times at night, flying out of the wreath when I went to the porch. I suspect finches although I couldn’t get a good look in the dark. If you’ve read my blog a while, you know the finches build nests in my door wreath each spring. In fact, I left the old grapevine wreath out for this very purpose.
A couple of weeks ago, I heard the telltale chatter on the porch. Finches discussing the wreath. Probably planning the nest. It was a loud, spirited conversation, hard to tell if the pair was in agreement or not…
I kept checking the wreath, but all I saw was the indented place where a bird or two had been sleeping.
No nest. It was still February, after all.
This past Saturday, the finches were the loudest yet, out there on the porch. My son and granddaughter, age sixteen months, were visiting.
“Is that your finches, Mom?” he asked.
“Yes. They’re talking about making a nest,” I explained.
We listened for a while to the happy trills.
The next morning I went out to check… surely a nest was started, with all that cheerful bird language?
I saw nothing.
Until…I don’t know what made me get the stool and check the far side of the wreath…
This is what the finches were up to:
A perfect nest, so perfectly disguised that even I, who was watching for it, didn’t find it until four eggs had already been laid.
I know this happens every spring across the Earth, but to me, it is a miracle. The eggs, incubating life, laid on a bed so carefully and lovingly lined with soft hair…it is soul-piercingly precious.
As is the father finch’s glorious, glorious song from the rooftop, morning and evening, his voice rolling down and echoing across the countryside. His is the predominant voice of all the birds around, and there are many…I will write of them later.
For the father finch’s song of deep joy is my own right now…celebrating family, life, light.
Good things are here.
******
with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Story Challenge every day in the month of March.
I suspect there will be lots of birds in my posts… spirit-lifters that they are.
Next-to-the last day of March. Early morning. Still dark. Chilly.
I sit at my laptop, sipping coffee, catching up on my Slice of Life blog comments. The neighborhood rooster across the street crows for all he’s worth.
My husband comes into the kitchen: “Is she up yet?” he whispers.
He means our granddaughter. She spent the night. We stayed up way late watching Frozen II (again). We watched her dancing to the ending credits soundtrack, performing her own astoundingly artistic interpretation, cheeks pink, blue eyes glowing…followed by punchy laughter before the crashing.
“Not yet,” I whisper back. He retreats to his study to work on sermons.
Shortly, though, she here she comes, a gift of the dawn, Aurora’s child, barefoot in a blue flannel gown, cloaked in long, disheveled hair, ethereal smile of joy illuminating the semi-dark kitchen. Favorite lines of a Billy Collins poem come to life:
But tomorrow dawn will come the way I picture her,
barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor. She will look in at me with her thin arms extended, offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.
My radiant dawn-child climbs into my lap. I let her read my post about Dennis the dachshund and his toy moose. At five, she reads with exactly the right inflection in exactly the right places, decoding beyootiful without batting an eye.
“That rascally Dennis!” She laughs aloud.
My husband returns, his own face alight at sight of her. “There she is!” he exclaims. “I’ve been waiting for you, Sugar Magnolia.”
He sings the opening line of the Grateful Dead song:
Sugar Magnolia blossom’s blooming…
Just so happens that our granddaughter’s middle name is Magnolia. A nod to her Louisiana heritage. A native tree here in North Carolina, too.
I think how, less than two years ago, my husband wasdead, until EMS and CPR brought him back. I think of all he’d have missed…
What matters is that we’re here together now, today, in this moment. The Grateful Alive.
Sugar Magnolia, in one of Grandpa’s hats
When we are dressed for the day, she asks: “Can I pick out your earrings? And your necklace?”
“Certainly.”
She picks the magnolia. She and my son gave it to me for my birthday last year.
She hands me the necklace, watches me clasp it, smiles with satisfaction.
She will look in at me with her thin arms extended, offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light…
Just beyond the bedroom door, from the windows in the foyer, birdsong.
The finches.
I waited for them all of March, in vain. Then, here at the very end, within the space of these last twenty-four hours, a nearly-complete nest rests on my front door wreath. More on this tomorrow, when I write with the Spiritual Journey gathering on the first Thursday in April…for now all that needs to be said is that the finches always come to my door, every year except this last one. They vanished without warning, without a trace, during COVID-19. Now they’re back, making their home in the wreath.
The magnolia wreath.
Front door wreath and nest-in-progress
Magnolias, magnolias, everywhere…
They are tougher than they look. The oldest flowering plants on Earth. A symbol of love, longevity, perseverance, endurance.
It’s that word that captures me: Endurance.
It is the end of March.
We’ve endured the COVID pandemic for a whole year.
We’ve endured the reinvention of life as we knew it, school as we knew it, teaching as we knew it.
My family has endured distance, isolation, individual private battles…and we all get our second round of vaccinations over these next two days.
My husband has endured. He is alive.
My granddaughter has endured. She is the light of our days.
The finches have endured. They have returned to resume nesting.
This is my last post for the Slice of Life Story Challenge; for thirty-one consecutive days, I’ve endured. My writing has endured.
I wrote a lot of memoir in the Challenge, for memories endure. I wrote of a walled garden and roots and the need to get out of the comfort zone; I did that with some of my writing. I think now of my magnolia metaphor and look back at its deep roots in my childhood. Southern heritage. My grandmothers, steel magnolias (although they wouldn’t have thought it of themselves). Women who endured wars, deprivation, unspeakable losses. The stand over the landscape of my life like the old magnolia trees near their homes, their churches. They were the encompassing, protective shadows against the burning sun and sweltering heat, the solid coolness of the earth under my feet, where lie the curious, fuzzy seedpods of my existence, my remembering, my gratitude, my faith. From these branches waft the eternal fragrance of sacrificial love and forgiveness; nothing on God’s Earth smells as sweet.
One final curious image—it persists, so I have to figure out if and how it will fit here: When I was very small, I spent a lot of time with Grandma, Daddy’s mother. She and Granddaddy lived nearby in city apartments until he retired and they moved back home to the country when I was six. In this scene, I am around four, I think:
I am waiting in the hall for Grandma. She’s turning the lights out; we are getting ready to go. She calls my name from another room. I call back: “I am here.” My voice keeps bouncing, off the walls, off the stairs going down, down, down, into the darkness; we have to go through it before we can get to the door and the sidewalks and the sunlight outside.
“Grandma!” I cry. More bouncing voice, hollow, strange.
She’s there in an instant. “What’s the matter?”
“What is that sound?”
“Oh, honey, that’s just your echo.”
She calls out, “Hello”…her voice bounces, just like mine.
“Echoooo…” I call. Echooo-ooo-ooo, says the shadow of my voice, rolling down the stairwell.
And I am no longer scared, because now I know.
What does this have to do with magnolias?
Only that we are on our way to the park, where she would offer me bread to feed the ducks, which would come to eat from my hands, from my little extended arms…and where the magnolias still grow in abundance. The memory is a cup of light I carry with me, just as the echo of her voice remains, just as I find myself echoing her, for we are always echoes of the ones we love most. As blood circulates in our veins, so do remembered light and beloved voices, long past shadows and silence. These are things that endure.
Grandma’s homeplace was named for the dawn, by the way. She’s literally Aurora’s child.
But tomorrow dawn will come the way I picture her…
“Stand right there, honey. Let me get your picture by that tree,” I tell my granddaughter, on our first trip to the park.
It’s a different park. A different tree.
But still, and always, a magnolia.
Our Sugar Magnolia, by “her” tree.
*******
With abiding gratitude to the community at Two Writing Teachers during the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge, which concludes today. It was a joy to write alongside you every day in the month of March. Thank you for every cup of light you offered; I will savor the echo of your voicesfor many days to come.
Dear Readers…as with children, what you do for one, you must do for the other, so…on the heels of yesterday’s airing of a grievance by Henry, another guest “pawthor” today…
Not to be outdone by that Henry! Here’s me and my Moose!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE my beyootiful Moose!
Won’t turn him loose! Try! Try! You can’t get my Moose, Moose, MOOSE!
I Moose Moose Moose….until I’m out of juice…
Zzzzzzzzzz…taking a snoose. With amoosing dreams.
*******
The annual Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers is underway, meaning that I am posting every day in the month of March.
This marks my fifth consecutive year.
About the Pawthor: Dennis the Dachshund is sixteen months old. He belongs to my musician son and is named for Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys.
Dear Readers, who stumble across this bit of unfortunate correspondence, please note that Henry, aka HRH, is an occasional contributor to my blog — a guest “pawthor,” if you will. He even has his own category on Lit Bits and Pieces. For an essential bit of perspective on what you’re about to encounter, my oldest son belongs to Henry. That is all I can really say in this regard, as Henry would not be dissuaded from airing his grievance … alas… who am I to deny anyone a forum? My humble apologies. – The Management
My Dear Him:
It is with immense forbearance that I have not addressed this issue before now, but the time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of this thing…
You and I have lived inseparably lo, these last five years, beginning with the day you came to redeem Me from a life behind bars (my having landed there through no fault of My own). I shall not go into the haunting particulars of that time, other than to say your appearing was, essentially, the day My life began in earnest.
You have proved yourself, for all intents and purposes, a good and loyal servant to Me, and I would be remiss to leave this unacknowledged. In fact, you remained constant to Me even when you took in the Her and the Little Her with those two lowly mongrel creatures of theirs in tow. I was never consulted on this matter, nor was My authorization sought, a serious violation of and in itself; but due to your theretofore slavish attentions to Me, I deigned out of the generosity of My heart to permit the Hers and their, ahem, dogs. Where We were two, We became, overnight, without the slightest bit of advance notice, six.
However.
Where I have been most accommodating of these arrangements on your behalf, as this menagerie of collected pets seemed to please you, and because I want nothing more than your happiness, second only to My own happiness, parameters have been crossed one too many times. Boundaries have been infringed upon. We have clearly reached The Point of No Return. Accordingly, I have no choice but to lodge a formal complaint in writing (which, as you know, is no small feat, considering that I must type one painstaking letter at a time with the tips of My forenails, which are curved to a ponderous and complicated degree at present due to your failure to perform My pedicure on a regular schedule).
In short: I have tolerated the mongrels and have endeavored to act kindly toward them, even to engage them. I have been gracious and accepting of both Hers, especially when there is a scent of Food or those fond delights called “Treats” on their persons. I have not appreciated the close proximity that the Hers insist on having to you, prompting Me, on occasion, as you will recall, to break up said proximity by wedging Myself between them and you as a reminder that you are, first and foremost, My Him. Let the record duly reflect.
Then, this evening, this very evening, as I tried yet again to fit the whole of Myself into your, might I say, rather pitiably undersized lap, only to be told “You know you cannot fit,” causing Me to retreat to the opposite end of the settee to nurse my wounded feelings…just to watch, right before My very eyes, as the Little Her climbed in exactly where I was told I could not fit. She is, in fact, larger than I, just slightly more vertical, yet you carefully encircle Her in your arms whereas I am left to My lone and lapless Self.
And she sits there, still. The pair of you looking terribly content.
I am hereby officially airing My grievance of this utter injustice and demand that corrective action be taken at once. If the matter is not rectified to My liking… well, I wouldn’t stoop to something destructive in regard to, say, the furniture or carpet, as I have too much wherewithal for that sort of protest; no, I will just continue to stare at this egregious display until you remember to Whom you belong. Which you have so obviously forgotten.
You have been notified.
I am waiting…
Signed, sealed, and delivered this day by HRH (Henry Rollins Haley)
Absolute affrontery. I command you to remove the Little Her from your lap AT ONCE.
*******
The annual Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers is underway, meaning that I am posting every day in the month of March.
This marks my fifth consecutive year.
Henry politely suggests renaming this Challenge to The Tournament of Champions, Wordsmiths of the World, Master Crafters of the Writing Guild, Order of the Padfoot. He seems quite Sirius. He also believes it would be a kind gesture to rename the site and recommends Too Writing Creatures. He fears the number is misleading.
With special thanks to Dr. Kim Johnson who hosted Ethical ELA’s Open Write last week with the invitation to compose “Your Life’s Table of Contents” poems. There is no formula, just lots of freedom; Kim said: “I started thinking about how I might write a table of contents organizing the poems I have written over these past few years, in verse…Imagine you are creating a collection of your own work, and try your hand at an organizing poem to be a table of contents or any other feature of a book.“
My poem is based on a timeline of my writing history, starting at age 6.
My Life’s Writing Anthology
Bible story plagiarized in blocky big letters on lined newsprint paper
All About Me carefully rendered detail teacher-praised
Myth of Shoeani on the origin of shoes
Dr. Heartbeat, Dr. Heartbeat a play composed around four words heart lion clock —I forget the fourth
The Poetry Years of rainbows friendships love loss even a baby dragon rhythms of my soul attempting to understand itself
A short story a mystery a secret a little girl kept safe
All-nighter research paper on the function of King Claudius in Hamlet —still tied two of my best friends for the highest marks in class
Oral tradition of grandparents put to paper for the first time
Novel ideas captured in notebooks beginning to live even if they haven’t breathed in a while
Critical research on children’s fantasy lit taking the last of my strength and the humanities prize
Short stories hammered out within word counts for competitions
Mentor texts for students and teachers learning how to write and to love memoir essay story fantasy poetry
The blog: the archive the scrapbook of my writing life my love letter to words and the world
*******
The annual Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers is underway, meaning that I am posting every day in the month of March. This marks my fifth consecutive year and I’m experimenting with an abecedarian approach: On Day 23, I am writing around a word beginning with letter w. How could it NOT be “writing”?
lit bits and pieces 