Mar 23, 2010

song sparrow

the song sparrows are back!
where do they go?
i love their little songs,
variable yet the same.
     i always recognize their voice.
     once when my sister lived in virginia
     i spent days there in the hot flat light
    listening to the song.
over and over and over
he sang the first 4 notes of beethoven's fifth,
and then a warble -
"da da de-daaa, burblewarblewarble"

     today the cardinal is competing for loudest bird.
     i wonder if the song sparrows
     stay with the cardinals?
     and don't really go away,
but like my neighbors up and down the street,
spend winter hunkered under shelter
until they have to burst out
and feel the warming sun?

3 comments:

  1. The mockingbirds are back. I am pleased. One imitates a car alarm, a cell phone. I play call and response with them on the electric guitar. Not sure if I'm imitating them or they're imitating me.

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  2. someday you will hear one of your songs by another musician, and he'll say "I got it from a mockingbird! I swear!"

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