WHY WE GO BIRDING
鳥になる詩人 Janine Soucie Kelley
Because birds sing,
and we want to learn their song.
Because our calendars are cluttered
and birds fly.
Because it’s okay to un-plug,
to pause and gaze outside and escape
the cage of deadlines.
Because we thirst for Beauty
and long to drink the blue of Jay, drink the gold of Finch,
drink the bright orange face of Tanager and emerald iridescence of Hummingbird,
shaded by the quiet white of clouds above
b r e a t h i n g in,
b r e a t h i n g out
the scent of Pine lingering in our hair,
until –– we too becomeForest.
Because perched
in this hushed, unrushed Being in the now of Forest looking for movement
hidden in the green wind-shimmer of leaves
the song of the Wood Thrush o p e n s u s to grace and gratitude
and the calm and peace of the Wild.
And like Daedalus, we invent wings
to escape a labyrinth of woe.
Dante thought Nature God’s Art.
Our souls are birds. Poets fly to God with words.
On A Narrow Road to the Deep North
fleeing the fire of Edo, Bashō walks slowly through a bamboo grove.
Resting, he counts moras in hokku, his brushstrokes feathers.
A red-crowned crane caws, Tori ni naru Shijin,
Poet becoming bird.
The math of Nature is like no other.
Be still. Count the ink-dark punctuation on the white breast
of a Wood Thrush. See God in Nature.
Vincent, his brush almost falling from his hand,
paints a sky troubled with crows and the wheat field crows feed on.
From his barred bedroom window, he lights candles on his hat brim, waiting with hope
for a starry night to paint with Gauguin, to spend with Sien.
Like Vincent, we hunger for God.
Nature is all –– and not enough.
Work, home, and those we love call to us.
Walking back to our vans, our skin exuding vanilla
from the amber bark of ageing Ponderosa,
hair twigged and nested by wind,
our body and soul glow
lit from within.
