How can so much noise feel like silence?
Not the noise of tractor trailers in the distance
or the pickup trucks speeding up and down our road
or the beeping backhoes at the neighbor's construction site,
but the juncos' trilling
and the white-throats' sweet whistle.
Even the guttural songs of the blackbirds in the hayfield
and the red-bellieds on the old stump,
the pileateds' one-note call
and the blue jays' raucous percussion
play their part in the vernal ensemble.
No longer the bare tangle of winter,
the hedgerow is dressed in lace,
every twig sprouting miniature leaves.
The serviceberries stand as sentries,
white blossoms floating against the sky
and the raspberries' green foliage a foil
for the blackhaw's russet hue.
Cardinals forage for withered berries
and the brown thrasher chortles atop the hornbeam,
pausing only long enough to dodge the mockingbird
who patrols the hedgerow as his own.
I am weary this morning,
weary of words, weary of worry.
The human world intrudes with its sorrow and its fear.
and sometimes I forget its goodness.
But I smile at the song sparrow hopping across the grass
as though he has springs in his feet.
I study the bluebirds feeding young ones in the hanging gourd
and the Carolina wrens gathering nesting material.
In their company I can rest into this moment
and human woes recede.
This refuge has become my refuge,
a microcosm of the world as I wish it were.
Any day now the ruby-throats
will arrive.
