Breathing

I saw and stack logs on the dry stone wall. When will the music begin? The sun will rise soon. Then he is there, be­hind me, on the dead branches of a wal­nut tree stran­gled by ivy. The song thrush fills the air with ge­nius.

I work on – my daily be­gin­ning, steadily clear­ing the de­bris after the Jan­u­ary snows. No tree sur­vived in­tact. Some were split down the mid­dle as if cleaved by a giant axe. Limbs lie every­where. I need to keep chip­ping away, cut­ting, mulching and de­cid­ing where to leave things to take their course. Decay is part of the cir­cle of life, food for the land, for the in­sects and, in turn, the birds. I must be mind­ful to bal­ance, for this farm is a co­op­er­a­tive. The thrush is proof, his com­pany the mea­sure that we might be doing some­thing right.

The sun is un­heeded today. Gold on blue. I feel it on my back and con­sider when the snakes will stir from the shadow cracks of the wall. I lean on the warm red rocks stacked by Joan a cen­tury ago and look up at the thrush won­der­ing where the mud cup nest will be built, the blue eggs laid. Less choice this bro­ken year.

These birds live on av­er­age for 3-4 years, if they can dodge the killers. The speckle-chested mas­ters of melody, preyed on by rap­tors but also trapped and eaten by human id­iots, her­ald the awak­en­ing after win­ter.

Their num­bers are drop­ping, their song fad­ing. I have lis­tened to two on the farm this Feb­ru­ary, con­tent to know they know there are snails aplenty for them here. The fe­males look just like the males and they will raise 2-3 broods dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son. I have yet to wit­ness one of them on his or her cho­sen anvil, the rocks where they so clev­erly crack open the shells.

There are other song­sters stir­ring too and many to fol­low, not least the nightin­gales for whom this is also a home, but Tur­dus philome­los is my first love.

As I lis­ten, my gaze glides from the thrush in the wal­nut to the lime­stone ridge be­yond, pink with first rays. The light show of dawn makes it ap­pear to move. And, of course, it is. The Earth breathes in and out, ris­ing and falling, for­ever chang­ing, giv­ing and tak­ing. We are but an eye blink in the life­time of our planet. We fool our­selves of per­ma­nence. Then the plates move and we are shaken.

I take one last mo­ment, a gulp of moun­tain air, leave the thrush and the wood­pile and head in for break­fast and that which must be faced – the of­fice and con­for­mity, the self con­scious­ness that like a blade cuts us from the fun­da­men­tal, awe­some ma­trix of ex­is­tence.

Or maybe I will first write to you about a bird and what it means to me.