Spring is always a vital time for birds around these parts.
We are smack-dab in the middle of the migratory flyway and even if you’re not a bird watcher, you can’t miss the songs and glimpses of vireos and orioles, blackbirds and grosbeaks, and many, many others.
This year, we’ve been more attuned than usual to the birds building nests in our workshop, stopping to rest on our roof and singing in our trees because we’ve done so much of our living outdoors. (It has been a lovely repercussion of having no inside kitchen, living room or dining room to speak of.)
So I dug up this old poem — it looks like I wrote it in 1994 or 5 — and thought I’d share it with you.
Happy Friday, friends…
Perch to Perch
Perch to perch, I cling to what peace one twig holds. – Tu Fu
A friend comes to visit with binoculars and bird books,
checkmarks by hundreds of varieties he’s seen
in
logs seven new species in my back yard.
I join him in the
pointing at wagging, trilling trees for him to name since nothing’s
new or curious inside the house — my love and I nit-picking,
circling in a many-dayed quarrel, each collecting small bits of refuge
and defense, only opening our mouths to speak in different languages.
Inca doves flock a tree like velvet, and down by the water
coots wade, lesser scaup swim. The titmouse sings
and even prattling grackles sound celebratory,
auspicious to my shut eyes, delighted
to have found enough sustenance at our feet to stay awhile.
I really want to see a widgeon, says bird watcher, binoculars
trained on a trunk at the stream’s edge, as if the desired and elusive
might suddenly land. And though I don’t think omens work
that way, I open my eyes again. Looking. Hopeful.
— Liz Garton Scanlon
Poetry Friday
Elaine M.
Liz,
It’s interesting to go looking through old poems to see what we’ve written in the past, isn’t it. I’m glad you let this poem shine in the light of day. It’s a fine one…indeed! I love the part: “Inca doves flock a tree like velvet.”
I hope your renovation will soon be completed.
Re: Poetry Friday
Thanks, Elaine. I do have this inclination to burn everything that wasn’t written yesterday, but every so often it’s worth pulling something back from the brink…
I love that notion of the quarrel between lovers and the “different languages” they’re speaking. Isn’t that always the way it is?
That’s a beautiful moment-in-time you captured.
Jules, 7-Imp
Thanks, Jules.
I’d forgotten about that part of the poem — I just remembered I had a bird-watching poem somewhere — and then I found it and was like, oh right. Bird-watching, relationship strife, the whole messy nest of it…
Oh me, your “old” poems are so vibrant and stunning. You may have seen them hundreds of times, but it’s the first sighting for me! I’m with Elaine on loving the words “flock a tree like velvet” and now I really want to see a widgeon, too, even though I have no idea what that is.
And I love the intertwining of the personal with the straightforward observation of the birds. Loose and beautiful.
Thanks, Sara. High praise, coming from you…
I may have seen ’em hundreds of times back in the day, but I’d darn near forgotten every detail of this. It’s fun/daunting to look back…
TadMack says: 🙂
This is really lovely — I love the thread about quarreling, and seeing nothing new indoors, but opening one’s eyes again — in hope — at the end. And scaups! I know what those are!
Re: TadMack says: 🙂
Ding ding ding!!! Hand TadMack the door prize!! (I’m not even totally sure I know what scaups are…)
Your writing humbles me. I’m a big bird watcher and love all these observations. Great second stanza, and hope at the end.
Thanks, Jama. I’m always one for finding a little hope at the end…
Glorious. I’m glad you didn’t burn this one, which works on so many levels (imagist, emotional). Like Elaine, I loved the Inca doves line as well. And the use of nesting bird imagery to describe you and your spouse and an ongoing quarrel (“each collecting small bits of refuge
and defense, only opening our mouths to speak in different languages” made me think of birds pulling together bits of twig and moss and strig to form a nest, and of bird babies opening wide to be fed).
I’m feeling a little guilty about now. My daughter must be in cahoots with you. A few days ago my husband and I had to remove a couple nests the robins were starting to build on the ledge of our bedroom window. Normally, we would have just let them be, but we would never be able to open these windows because they were pecking at the screens and managed to get the edge open. My daughter revolted.
Lovely!
I enjoy watching the birds, too. Haven’t seen an oriole yet this spring, although we have the oranges out.
Sorry to hear about your storms. Scary!
“delighted
to have found enough sustenance at our feet to stay awhile.
I really want to see a widgeon,”
This is just great. Nice blend of the new fascination with bird watcher friend and old strife inside the house, as others said. I too am glad you pulled this out today!
I am once again, in awe, of your poetic prowess.
I don’t know many of the birds you name and yet I feel now, as though I do. Thank yuo for sharing with us.
Liz, this is omg wonderful. The way you list all the birds your friend has sighted in ever-more exotic places, and then you bring it back to the 7 new ones just in your backyard. I LOVE that. And your ending…omens might not work, but looking, being hopeful, might!
Thanks for sharing!