Outside my window
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
Thoreau's Journal, April 3, 1852
Ah ... a leisurely stretch, as the last dreams of the night fade,
and I open my eyes to welcome this morning,
and see … snow.
Pretty little white flakes, drifting down.
Again.
Don’t they know that Winter is officially over?
Well, there are other ways to celebrate the first day of Spring,
besides picking posies. (I’d have to go to a garden center greenhouse, in order to do that !)
It’s a day for a walk, at the very least.
Just to see what’s going on outdoors.
As I pull on my boots, Mom calls me to the window.
A bluebird is sitting just outside.
He’s chirruping softly, but seems confused by the snow.
He hunkers down on a neighbor’s wind-ornament,
which proceeds to slowly spiral around,
with the bird riding on it!
(if you turn up the volume, you can hear very faint chirrups.)
If that bluebird could flap his little wings and fly due east,
and magically fly for many many hours,
he would look down through the clouds
and see some of my Friends celebrating the New Year
on this day.
For the moment, this bird seems to be content
with spinning around,
quite vividly bringing the words of Thoreau to life:
I no sooner step out of the house
than I hear the bluebirds in the air, and far and near, everywhere except in the woods,
throughout the town you may hear them, --
the blue curls of their warblings, --
harbingers of serene and warm weather,
little azure rills of melody trickling here and there
from out of the air,
their short warble trilled in the air reminding me
of so many corkscrews
assaulting and thawing the torpid mass of winter,
assisting the ice and snow to melt
and the streams to flow.
HDT Journal, March 18, 1853
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