LISTEN RIGHT NOW

Near sunset, stopped mid-labor at a sudden song sounded way up in the oak tree, an intense and passionate song, with a special finish to it, repeated over and over with variations in the curlicue ending. Finally spotted the bird, but only in silhouette against the easterly mackerel clouds. It looked like a wheatear, but he was even a blur as a silhouette, bouncing around up there all alone like something of transcendant importance was going on, and I suppose it was; this early taste of Spring swells the buds in us all, summons that ancient urgency from long before we were. That natural aria up there carried all of that plus something extra, made me stop my next year's work and listen right now to what's really going on.