There is that one morning in March when a warm bit of air hits my face and I am suddenly aware of a clear, strong note from the top of the spruce, the saddest cry of spring: The tufted titmouse has begun his song.
Last week, as the little brown dogs and I were returning from skiing in the upland forests above our house, I stopped suddenly hearing a Carolina wren singing “pretty bird-pretty bird,” his nasal cardinal-like song from atop the brush pile. It was not yet spring, but the air was warming, the red buds of the basswood trees were swelling and the sun was hanging a little longer in the west each evening. Later that afternoon, the purple finches began warbling, and I yelled out to the neighborhood, “Let the singing begin!”
There is a slowing down that happens around here as winter recedes. The urgency of feeding the stove to stay warm and getting outside before the sun sets gives way to warmer, longer days, and the luxury of noticing.
Yet I wonder about this blessing we have of living here, this luxury of noticing the natural world, when people in Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan and so many other places are just trying to be safe. Do those in conflict zones even have the energy to notice a singing bird atop the rubble? I keep seeing the image of a man in Kyiv sitting at his white grand piano, now covered in gray concrete dust, and I wonder if he will ever play this piano again. I wonder if a songbird resting on a crumbling wall will sing his springtime song of fitness, or will he be too frightened by the sounds of tanks?
Azar Nafisi in her new book, Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times, points out the importance of people who notice what is happening and write about it. Poets are dangerous, she points out, because they question everything. So, to feel a little better about living in a safe place and having the luxury to go out into nature every day, I will continue to write and to notice and to wonder if musicians and birds stop singing during war.