A week ago my mind was full of words. They were words I was trying to sort into order, a complete inner discussion regarding a tricky topic and situation. Every time I had a space of silence, my brain started chattering and composing (and, I joked to my family, decomposing). Usually when that kind of thing grips me, the best solution to working it out is to sit down and try to get the words onto paper. But this time I didn’t have the minutes (or hours) to do that, so instead I kept moving, and my brain kept talking.
One early morning when the house was still quiet, my busy brain and I took my morning coffee and stared out the back window. There was daylight, and the world was packed with birdsong, and a robin underneath our southern magnolia was on a mission. As I watched her, my beleaguered brain rested, and when she was done I took a moment to sit down and write—not about the messy milieu of a situation, but just what I’d seen out the back window:
I’ve been watching a mother robin who is busy building a nest in our southern magnolia tree. She hops about on the ground, snatching a blade of grass here, a twig there. Yesterday she found something white, like a bit of fluff or tissue—who knows—but she took it up like all the other bits. When she has enough in her beak, she flits up into the tree, and branch by branch makes her way to her nest project—I can just see it from our back kitchen window. She pushes the twigs and grass down into the nest, working her magic, then flutters down to the old tomato cage under the tree, sits a moment, then flits down to the basin I’ve put on the ground for a birdbath. She takes one quick sip, spots another good piece for her nest, and she’s off again, gathering it up.
I know she’s fully able to get the water she needs elsewhere, but it makes me glad that maybe I’ve made her work a little easier by providing fresh water right in her work zone. I can’t do anything to guarantee that she’ll be successful in laying her eggs or raising her babies to be future nest-builders and singers, but this one thing I can do.
Since that morning I’ve had a lot more time to think, to consider, to write. The words I finally wrote to address the situation seemed to be the only ones I could write, but they were far from satisfactory. I put them down on paper, but for now the results are as unknown as the success of this robin’s nest. Like the robin, though, I have a sources of refreshment and help in my family and friends and, most vitally, in God. And I’ll leave it at that.
Art for the week:
This week I’ve got a bit of written art. A group of us from The Habit are taking up an April challenge of writing a poem today based on a list of spring-related prompts. Yesterday the word was “lamb,” and all I kept thinking of was the first lines of William Blake’s poem, “Little Lamb.” I decided to use the first line and create a Golden Shovel poem, where the final word of each line is one of the words of the quote. I’ve tweaked the final word to update the language. The results are mediocre, but every time I take on a challenge like this, I have fun and grow. I’ll plan to post each day’s poem on my website. Today the prompt is “mud,” and I’m working on a sonnet.
“Little Lamb, who made thee?” ~William Blake
Every now and then I long a little,
Wishing for the simplicity of a lamb,
Childlike faith and trust in one who
Spins the worlds and stories he has made.
Life, then, would be easier I think. Don’t you?
Check out Daughter of Arden at Bandersnatchbooks.com, along with other great titles.
You can find links to more of my writing at A Shaft of Sun Through the Rain and my old blog, Willing, Wanting, Waiting.
That “One early morning,” paragraph is poetic.
I find that paying attention to the natural world and getting out of my head space helps me gain perspective. And when I am in an emotional funk, watching birds always helps.