SYMPHONIES

Before he flies off Crow yaks for a while, likely about me being too near the compost pile for a comfortable visit by his honorable darkness. Then in the last of the gardening light, as I trowel in some lettuces and big beans, the only other is the wood dove-- probably under the eaves, following the litany dove ancestors have perfected over eons...

That familiar ancient incantation sounds soothingly simple to our differently evolved ears, untrained in the deeper aspects of avian taste and striving; yes, simple to our ears, but the longer you listen the less simple it becomes. You begin to sense that that mellow cooing has core densities, intensities and deeper syncopations of the same fundamental kinds that our own great composers are ever seeking in their lifetimes...

Out there upon the cooling air, the song is plain as a gentle hand on a shoulder: simple but uniquely effective, as it was indeed woven over time to be, especially to other wood doves; to them it is as effective as the efforts of Johann, Wolfgang, Ludwig, Igor, Gustav and colleagues are to us, both species seeking the same ancient object: to make a fitting statement into the awesome quiet...

And quiet it is, here in the evening garden, all the more for being the silence that defines those notes, murmured as though to the air itself, an effort begun so long ago and polished all the way to now, when, with the smoothness of time passing, those elegant sounds meet the same need that quickens in seeds...