I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven. - Emily Dickinson
one bird
on a fence post
singing with all its might
is all it takes, and the mountains
will turn green. -Michael McClintock
Just as I suspected - Hafiz
In a vision I heard this clearly whispered: study those who sing the most, but are free of criticism or praise.
Following that advice, things turned out just as I suspected: I started spending more time with birds.
Birds in a Circle - Kevin Stein
I wouldn’t argue, either, with the good fortune
of this: a circle of bare dirt, grass and seeds,
the warm jet of air the dryer spills out
to melt the snow. I’ve seen them perched
in the ash and black locust, among a familiar
stand of blackjack and burr and chinkapin.
Creatures of unreal design – a splotch of blue
or seasonal red, a yellow that’s really more green.
They strike the pose of things with wings:
here now, gone now. But seeing them this close,
huddled in a circle of clear space, they look
too-perfectly made, ornaments hand-carved
birds red-bellied and black-capped,
the pileated and ruby-crowned static in mid-flight.
Come here, they say. Touch me. I won’t fly away.
Still, kneeling in a window above these birds,
I don’t move so they won’t. This slant of morning,
particular and alluring, tempts me to believe
a thing so lovely it’s absurd – that I could live here
forever, if only a wing weren’t made for flight,
this body of mine so much dirt.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and co-ordinated as bird-wings. - Rumi
your head is a living forest full of song birds - e.e. cummings
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.
- Emily Dickinson
“Dear hoopoe, welcome! You will be our guide;
It was on you King Solomon relied
To carry secret messages between
His court and distant Sheba’s lovely queen.
He knew your language and you knew his heart --
As his close confidant you learnt the art
Of holding demons captive underground,
And for these valiant exploits you were crowned.”
― Farid ud-Din Attar, The Conference of the Birds
may my heart always be open - e.e. cummings
may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old
may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it’s sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young
and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there’s never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile
The Birds
are heading south, pulled
by a compass in the genes.
They are not fooled
by this odd November summer,
though we stand in our doorways
wearing cotton dresses.
We are watching them
as they swoop and gather—
the shadow of wings
falls over the heart.
When they rustle among
the empty branches, the trees
must think their lost leaves
have come back.
The birds are heading south,
instinct is the oldest story.
They fly over their doubles,
the mute weather-vanes,
teaching all of us
with their tail-feathers
the true north.
- Linda Pastan
BARN SWALLOW
A hanging porch-light's broken bulbless cup
Will do as well as anything.
She fits it to her purpose, flying up
With spoils of tugs and rummaging
To the amusement of the chickadees
And cracks of old black crows
Who lack her sense of possibilities,
Until her nest takes shape, and grows.
Is she content? She sometimes scans the sky
For hawks on cloudless nights in June.
Those peregrines and red-tails terrify
And thrill her! They seem to brush the moon.
But even so, there's something to be said
For feathering a kind of heaven
On a few twigs and some frayed bits of thread,
From what she finds that she is given
In the detritus other birds would leave.
Why should she be particular?
The mettle of a nest is in the weave.
It's all material to her.
- Matthew Brenneman
The Blue
… tall, gray,
straight as a pole among the cloudy reeds.
Then it picks up one stem leg. This takes time.
And sets it down just beyond the other,
no splash, breath of a ripple, goes on
slowly across the silt, mud, algae-
throttled surface, through sedge grass,
to stand to its knees in water turning
grayer now that afternoon is evening.
Now that afternoon is evening
the gray heron turns blue, bluer than sky,
bluer than the mercury blue-black still pond.
-David Baker
To the Oregon Robin - by John Burroughs
O varied thrush! O robin strange!
Behold my mute surprise.
Thy form and flight I long have known,
But not this new disguise.
I do not know thy slaty coat,
Thy vest with darker zone;
I'm puzzled by thy recluse ways
And song in monotone.
I left thee 'mid my orchard's bloom,
When May had crowned the year;
Thy nest was on the apple-bough,
Where rose thy carol clear.
Thou lurest now through fragrant shades,
Where hoary spruces grow;
Where floor of moss infolds the foot,
Like depths of fallen snow.
I follow fast or pause alert,
To spy out thy retreat;
Or see thee perched on tree or shrub,
Where field and forest meet.
Thy voice is like a hermit's reed
That solitude beguiles;
Again 't is like a silver bell
Atune in forest aisles.
Throw off, throw off this masquerade
And don thy ruddy vest,
And let me find thee, as of old,
Beside thy orchard nest.
A Bird Came Down - Emily Dickinson
Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home
Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.
Spotted Owl