Hey Spring Peeper. Hey, My Carolina Wren.
On late winter malaise, but hope. Plus, Album Art is back!
The work of standing up for the vulnerable and attacked—trans people, federal workers, democracy, immigrants, Social Security and Medicaid recipients, women needing medical care, scientists and researchers, teachers, children, working people, Black people, history, public health, food safety, veterans, and Title IX, for the short list—continues. If you haven’t used 5calls.org or Chop Wood, Carry Water to begin taking small daily actions, today’s the day. If you have other action resources, please share them in the comments. ❤️
I slipped on invisible ice yesterday. Three minutes from home, at the end of the morning walk I try to take every day before my hour of writing time, I stepped in a darling little puddle.
My right foot slid forward. My left shin went flat to the wet road. Both arms flew out and up into a wide V. Various pinched shoulder nerves considered rioting, but decided to make like Simone Biles after a vault instead. Gold!
This is the life of late winter.
Ice lurks in thin puddles. The snowbanks melts in layers of gravel and shriveled dreams. All buildings list in the wind like dirty sand castles. Balmy noons turn to raw dawns, and you sweat in your woolens and shiver in your cottons. You’ve lost two of your newer sweaters, and they weren’t that great to begin with. Nice underwear costs $40 a pair. You forget to meal plan and eat tortilla chips for every lunch. The trees are so sick of each other’s bare scratchy branches. Even the dog can’t stand stumbling over the frozen, broken field.
And yet…
There at the bottom of Troy Hill Road, as I posed on the tar and ice, my face frozen in a shocked and angry grin, a crowd went wild.
They ole’d! They rah’d! They vuvuzela’d! They screamed at the ref, and they caterwauled with ecstasy at the bounce pass between two guards for the slick reverse lay-up in post. (I watch a lot more basketball than gymnastics.)
And I heard them all. The Carolina Wren, Eastern Bluebird, American Woodcock, and Red-winged Blackbird, some who’ve just showed up before spring, some here all winter long and practicing their new season scales. And Chickadee was there! The caffeinated White-Breasted Nuthatch! The Bluejays, frantic and cranky, working past deadline! The Titmouse! The Woodpeckers, Downy and Hairy! My Ravens, sounding like half-dollars bouncing down a waterfall pinball machine! Gold!
I staggered up and heard them all. I know because I checked with Merlin Bird ID, and I saw I few, including the crazy color-block zoot suit that is the underside a Northern Mockingbird’s spread wings.
This is the life of late winter.
Wet-legged, I finished my walk and went to my desk.
There, by the almost-blooming geranium, rescued last fall after a summer neglected outside, rested a book of poems by Violeta Garcia-Mendoza.
I turned to one of my favorites.
You know the stillness, the peace and fortitude, that comes with music? Even when you’re listening to a flock of shrieking grackles, or the ska-funk-rock-metal of Fishbone singing “Subliminal Fascism” from their 1988 album Truth and Soul?
I find that golden stillness in this poem every time. Here it is, shared with permission from the poet.
This is the life of late winter, but it’s almost spring.
Album Art Is Back, and This Time It’s Irish!
On March 27, 6-8 p.m., at 17ROX in Keene, New Hampshire, we’ll be gathering again for ALBUM ART.
This is the beautifully low-key art gathering where we gather up, hang out, work on our art (or spreadsheets or meal planning or bird research or what have you) and listen to two albums start to finish, as Quincy Jones intended.
This month, we’ll be honoring St. Patrick’s Day with two classic Irish albums.
It’s all free, and it’s all perfect. Peace, music, fortitude, fun.
Stay tuned next week for the poster. Hope to see you March 27 if you’re in the area.
I’d love to read your favorite poems for this season. Drop some links in the comments?
And thank you, Violeta, for your poem and for Songs for the Land-Bound. Gold.
See you next week, and love,
Becky
Thanks for reading and for sharing! 🫶
Revision means survival. Amen to that! Thanks for this lovely post.