Memories.
On those rare mornings when I’m not rushing out to load or re-load a kiln in the pre-dawn hours and Dar isn’t similarly rushing around putting a day in order, we like to have a cup of coffee on our redneck back porch.
The porch “furniture” consists of one of the bench seats from the 15 passenger van we use to haul pottery to art fairs, a small stuffed arm chair that Dar re-upholstered when we were 20 years old and living in a trailer, a trunk we bought at a country auction, and a shelf I screwed into the window ledge so Crush could have a padded perch upon which to hold sentry on the back acre.
The bench seat ended up on the porch more for the dogs’ use than for ours. They like it. When Breeze was a puppy, he and Ariel could fit on it together – butt to butt. When Breeze got too big, he moved under the bench. That was just fine with him. He’s a natural denner.
But we do use that bench on occasion. Like these pre-dawn coffee sets.
And one of the pleasures of taking coffee on the porch that way is that we get to hear the birds wake up. For years we’ve had a cardinal family living with us. I suppose everyone thinks their cardinal family is the loudest, sweetest sounding cardinal family, so I guess it won’t surprise anyone when I brag to you what great singers ours happen to be.
This year’s nest appears to be in the thirty foot spruce tree that stands both beside and over the porch. So when the cardinal wakes up, we get a real trumpet blast. Dar and I even wondered one such morning if this particular redbird wouldn’t take a pretty good game to your average crowing rooster.
This morning past, Dar and I were doing the coffee/redneck porch/van bench/predawn thing. Sure enough, the cardinal woke up just short minutes after we’d taken to the bench.
We sat there enjoying our coffee and the music.
Then Dar gave me a look. She didn’t say anything. She just gave me that look that is the universal human body language for “Listen!” And just as she needn’t have use words to tell me to listen, she also didn’t need to explain that she further meant that I should be listening for something not immediately evident.
So I sat very still and I listened.
And there it was.
With each blast from our redbird there was an echo blast – though barely audible – coming from the treeline that is beyond our back yard and the back yards of our neighbors, across Crystal Lake Road, and all the way across the 20 acre cornfield to the south of it.
Distant.
But we could hear it. So, obviously, could our redbird. Ours would trumpet, and within a few seconds came the response. We sat there in the dark of dawn listening to the exchange. We might as well have had our eyes closed. We saw nothing anyway. We were too engrossed in the listening. The conversation was riveting.
If I heard the world the way a bird hears the world
I’d be but vaguely aware of the sounds on the ground
Of the traffic noise and the voices below.
What I would hear, though,
Barely audible (unless one is listening intently for it)
Coming from the distant tree line on the horizon
Is the echo of my own call
Call and response, call and response.
Call
Response
Your place, or mine, or somewhere in between?
If I saw the world the way a bird sees the world
I wouldn’t see the world of walls and barriers
Of lines, and of your side and mine.
I’d see around corners and know what’s ahead
And the shortest distance between two points
I could fly to your side. As the crow flies.
That’s what that means. No winding roads or detours
Unless I was just goofing around. (I do that)
Sometimes I’d swoop around and loop around just because I could.
And if I felt the world the way a bird feels the world
I’d do the most unlikely act in the world
Except it wouldn’t be an act
It would be for real
I’d trust the unlikely. I’d trust the invisible.
I’d trust the air beneath my wings
To carry me home.
