Be Like a Bird

So, I have been working on various art projects lately... I hadn't specifically drawn for a while, and was surprised how good it felt to pick up a pencil the other day. You wouldn't know because there is no color here, but this is a violet-green swallow. They always remind me of my friend Robert Michael Pyle. He and Thea know spring has arrived in Gray's River when the violet-greens return, swooping in to reclaim their nest under the eaves of the front porch. How magical it would be to be the harbinger who everyone looks for in the afternoon. But it is much, much too early to think of spring here, even as my dark hyacinths grow long and leggy across the kitchen table. No, for now it is better to think of the chickadees flickering through the winter wood, tittering over hidden seeds between thin branches. And if still, the blue begins to creep, think too of this little verse a friend passed along to me last year...

Thachycinta thalassina

Be like a bird, who, halting in her flight,

On a limb to slight, feels it give way beneath her;

Yet sings, sings, knowing she has wings;

Yet sings, sings, knowing she has wings.