Some sounds of Spring #phenology

If we get some cold, rainy weather, I'll spend some time replicating the bar graph in this linked animation: Northwoods Frog Call Phenology. For now, you can use it to better understand who's chirruping in  your nearby wetlands. I find it heartening that there's still a chorus of frogs to listen to in the evenings.

treefrog

Photo by J. Harrington

Mornings these days are more and more full of birdsong, which prompted an unfortunate comment from the usually tolerant Better Half about the "racket." (Her patience has no doubt been worn thin by the time she's been spending listening to my rants about the consequences of the terminal stupidity displayed by more than 60 million members of the electorate a few years ago.) Anyhow, rose-breasted grosbeaks are back. Today we hung a grape jelly feeder for orioles. With luck scarlet tanagers will soon  stop by as they pass through this year.

male rose-breasted grosbeak

Photo by J. Harrington

I assume you've seen, heard, or read the reports on the hog processing plant COVID-19 hotspots. My dislike for concentrated animal feeding operations [CAFOs], combined with the coronavirus outbreaks in meatpacking plants, have prompted me to start a search for a local source of heritage pork that's been humanely raised. The Better Half concurs in trying this option, which is very helpful and allows me to avoid having to threaten to hold my breath until I turn blue. We've tried local producers through an on-line food hub and found the quality to be very uneven. That same issue arose a few years back when  we were regularly getting Bourbon Red heritage turkeys for Thanksgiving. The first couple of years they were great. Then, one year the bird was tough, stringy, and the flavor was off. The tradeoff between volatility in quality and consistent but industrial may make for some interesting eating and, perhaps, writing. If you have any thoughts about or experiences with heritage meats, please share them in the comments. Relocalizing our  food supply isn't going to be a walk in the park through the pasture, but I'm betting it will be worth it.

Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs.
Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs.

Wallace Stevens - 1879-1955

It is true that the rivers went nosing like swine,
Tugging at banks, until they seemed
Bland belly-sounds in somnolent troughs,

That the air was heavy with the breath of these swine,
The breath of turgid summer, and
Heavy with thunder’s rattapallax,

That the man who erected this cabin, planted
This field, and tended it awhile,
Knew not the quirks of imagery,

That the hours of his indolent, arid days,
Grotesque with this nosing in banks,
This somnolence and rattapallax,

Seemed to suckle themselves on his arid being,
As the swine-like rivers suckled themselves
While they went seaward to the sea-mouths.

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Thankful for language(s)

This morning the perfect word to describe Minnesota's November weather magically appeared on the computer screen. The word in question "topped a poll to mark Book Week Scotland, led by the Scottish Book Trust." It's the Scottish word dreich. That word has now become one of my favorite words and even has a link to Minnesota since its etymology, according to Merriam-Webster, is "Middle English, of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse drjūgr lasting."

dull and depressing dreich weather?

Photo by J. Harrington

There's a different word, a Welsh word from another part of the British Isles, that I fell in love with some time ago. That word, hiraeth, is of proto-Celtic derivation. It often describes my feelings for the Southern Massachusetts beaches of my (much) younger days. All of this has reminded me of a piece of doggerel I learned in high school, in the days I studied Latin and ancient Greek languages.

Latin's a dead language
Just as dead as it can be.
First it killed the Romans,
And now it's killing me.

I believe I've noticed that tv, "sound bites," the internet, and social media have all been contributing to a shortened attention span and a depleted vocabulary (mine). It is past time for moderation on social media and recommitment to enlarging my vocabulary, including noting new (or renewed) words and dedicating energy to using those words either here or in conversation. (Yelling curses at the dogs doesn't count.)

in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.

Photo by J. Harrington

As long as we're exploring a theme today related to variants on the English language, it's a great time to share with you another moderately recent discovery, a British web site known as Caught By the River. We've been enjoying it for several months now and have purchased, and enjoyed, both music and books we first discovered in their listings and reviews. Frankly, we'd love to see something similar for the St. Croix Valley. The St. Croix Splash provides a helpful listing of events, but lacks reviews and the original material often found on CBtR. For now, we'll just be thankful that there is the Splash and the additional events listed on the St. Croix 360 events page. Some years ago, the Franconia Sculpture Park sponsored and facilitated an arts-related book club that we really enjoyed. More please?

Eagle Poem

By Joy Harjo

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.

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Peak peekers at peak colors!

Today we took a friend to lunch at The Watershed Cafe in Osceola, WI. We've never before been there when it's been as crowded as it was today. We were daring and ate outside on the deck. Sunlight was starting to prevail and the breeze was mostly gentle. Today may have been the last decent chance this year to enjoy eating outside.

whispering waterfall in Osceola

Photo by J. Harrington

Before, during and after our lunch, mobs of motorcyclists rumbled across the 243 bridge and through downtown Osceola. An occasional classic car would cruise by and there were almost as many pedestrians as fallen leaves along the sidewalks. Everyone must have seen, and responded to, the stories about peak Autumn color and the brief interlude of classic Autumn weather. The crowds, for the most part, were cordial; the bikers, not so much. Was today Autumn's last hurrah for this year, or is there more to come? Sometime soon we'll begin the descent to deeply diminished temperatures and increased snow cover. The seasons will have changed. Will the transition be gradual, or abrupt? Have you stored enough of Autumn's memories for this year, or must you try to squeeze in some more before Thanksgiving? Remember, we're at Autumn's midpoint. it's about six weeks to the beginning of meteorological Winter, and Thanksgiving is late this year. Celebrate now! Soon the susurration of streams tumbling over rocks and down waterfalls will be muffled by snow and ice until Spring.

pumpkins, official veggie of October?

Photo by J. Harrington

As additional signs that peak Autumn has arrived, we saw several flocks, some large, some small, some in the air, some on the ground, of Canada geese and sandhill cranes during our drive. Local farmers have begun to harvest corn and soybeans, although many of the fields we passed remained untouched. The parking area at Pleasant Valley Orchard was almost full as we drove by. It's peak time for several varieties of apples, and pumpkins are on display almost everywhere.

October

By Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

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"Being there"

Yesterday evening we enjoyed a fire in our fire pit. The fuel was dead, broken branches that had come down during Winter's storms. Except for the crackle and snap of the flames, it was quiet and peaceful. We sat at the edge of the drive and could hear the frogs and peepers. The Better Half heard some turkeys going to roost. While enjoying the peaceful evening, it occurred to us how little time we've spent outside on the property without some sort of tractor or other small engine running. And yet...

the atavistic pleasure of a fire

Photo by J. Harrington

And yet we've been delighted this week hearing the calls of sandhill cranes, even a raven or two imitating sandhill cranes. Those sounds rarely, if ever, carry through the rasp of a small engine. One of the reasons we moved to the country was to enjoy the peace and quiet. Some evenings we hear the neighborhood pack of coyotes, but primarily muted because we're inside the house. Even sitting on the screened porch seems to us to be more inside than outside. We're inside highly permeable walls. Sound carries better but it's not the same as "being there," as Gene Hill, one of our long-time favorite writers, put it.

But the truth, to my way of seeing it, is that those who love the bits and pieces of being there—the sweetness of a singing lark, the way one whitetail can suddenly fill up a clearing, the fearsomeness of a sudden storm, and the almost unbelievable sense of relief when we’ve gotten out of a very sticky situation—have to have a sense of the magic of it all, a belief in the intangible and unknown, and no small degree of unquestionable wonder.

Thinking of these truths brings back memories of the dreams and hopes of our younger days. We've been fortunate enough to fulfill many fantasies. We've also been foolish enough to get sucked into a mindset that chores are something to get over and done so we can get on with enjoying life. Efficiency often entails labor augmented by fossil-fueled horsepower. There goes any kind of peace and quiet. This weekend we've been doing more by hand. It's less efficient and less convenient, and we've ended up sore and stiff, but we've been reminded of the satisfaction of accomplishment and the joy of working with our hands and back and mind. We think we remember an old saying to the effect that anything, carried to its logical extreme, becomes absurd. In light of how we spent yesterday, last evening, and today, we've proven that and are starting to back off of absurdity and into a more rewarding reality.

Magic

By Louis Untermeyer

We passed old farmer Boothby in the field.

Rugged and straight he stood; his body steeled

With stubbornness and age. We met his eyes

That never flinched or turned to compromise,

And “Luck,” he cried, “good luck!”—and waved an arm,

Knotted and sailor-like, such as no farm

In all of Maine could boast of; and away

He turned again to pitch his new-cut hay...

We walked on leisurely until a bend

Showed him once more, now working toward the end

Of one great path; wearing his eighty years

Like banners lifted in a wind of cheers.

Then we turned off abruptly—took the road

Cutting the village, the one with the commanding

View of the river. And we strode

More briskly now to the long pier that showed

Where the frail boats were kept at Indian Landing.

In the canoe we stepped; our paddles dipped

Leisurely downwards, and the slim bark slipped

More on than in the water. Smoothly then

We shot its nose against the rippling current,

Feeling the rising river’s half-deterrent

Pull on the paddle as we turned the blade

To keep from swerving round; while we delayed

To watch the curious wave-eaten locks;

Or pass, with lazy turns, the picnic-rocks....

Blue eels flew under us, and fishes darted

A thousand ways; the once broad channel shrunk.

And over us the wise and noble-hearted

Twilight leaned down; the sunset mists were parted,—

And we, with thoughts on tiptoe, slunk

Down the green, twisting alleys of the Kennebunk,

Motionless in the meadows

The trees, the rocks, the cows...

And quiet dripped from the shadows

Like rain from heavy boughs.

The tree-toads started ringing

Their ceaseless silver bells;

A land-locked breeze came swinging

Its censer of earthy smells.

The river’s tiny cañon

Stretched into dusky lands;

Like a dark and silent companion

Evening held out her hands.

Hushed were the dawn’s bravados;

Loud noon was a silenced cry—

And quiet slipped from the shadows

As stars slip out of the sky...

It must have been an hour more, or later,

When, tramping homeward through the piney wood,

We felt the years fly back; the brotherhood

Of forests took us—and we saw the satyr!

There in a pool, up to his neck, he stood

And grinned to see us stare, incredulous—

Too startled to remember fear or flight.

Feeling the menace in the crafty night,

We turned to run—when lo, he called to us!

Using our very names he called. We drew

With creaking courage down the avenue

Of birches till we saw, with clearing sight,

(No longer through a tricky, pale-green light)

Familiar turns and shrubs, the friendly path,—

And Farmer Boothby in his woodland bath!

The woods became his background; every tree

Seemed part of him, and stood erect, and shared

The beauty of that gnarled serenity;

The quiet vigor of age that smiled and squared

Its shoulders against Time ... And even night

Flowed in and out of him, as though content

With such a native element;

Happy to move about a spirit quite

As old, as placid and as confident...

Sideways we turned. Still glistening and unclad

He leaped up on the bank, light as a lad,

His body in the moonlight dripping stars...

We went on homeward, through the pasture-bars.

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The horns of Spring

When, yesterday, we began listing the Sounds of (early) Spring, we committed a mortal sin of omission. From the quotation below, taken from Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac, see if you can determine who we left out:

High horns, low horns, silence, and finally a pandemonium of trumpets, rattles, croaks , and cries that almost shakes the bog with its nearness, but without yet disclosing whence it comes. At last a glint of sun reveals the approach of a great echelon of birds. On motionless wing they emerge from the lifting mists, sweep a final arc of sky, and settle in clangorous descending spirals to their feeding grounds....

Yes, you're correct. We omitted sandhill cranes. We are embarrassed and would be more so had we not mentioned them in a slightly different context several weeks ago, on March 1. Today, the Better Half reported having heard cranes as she was returning with her dog, Franco, from their mid-day constitutional. We look forward with high anticipation to both seeing and hearing the returned cranes and are very grateful Leopold's Marshland Elegy remains premature.

sandhill cranes have returned

Photo by J. Harrington

The Sandhills

By Linda Hogan

The language of cranes

we once were told

is the wind. The wind 

is their method,

their current, the translated story 

of life they write across the sky. 

Millions of years

they have blown here

on ancestral longing,

their wings of wide arrival, 

necks long, legs stretched out 

above strands of earth

where they arrive

with the shine of water, 

stories, interminable

language of exchanges 

descended from the sky

and then they stand,

earth made only of crane 

from bank to bank of the river 

as far as you can see

the ancient story made new.

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Sounds of (early) Spring #phenology

As we let one of the dogs out this morning, we heard, very briefly, either geese gabbling or turkeys gobbling. We're not sure which but lean toward the gabbling since it may be a little too early for turkey gobbling. In either case, the sounds of Spring are upon us. What others are there?

a red-winged blackbird has returned to the marsh

Photo by J. Harrington

• the territorial / mating calls of birds, especially those of returned red-winged blackbirds;
• the susurration sounds of running water;
• the drip, drip, plip, plop of dripping water;
• the cracking and crunching of ice cover breaking up;
• we can't hear the soft sounds of sap rising or new growth emerging, but know it's there;
• the rumble and crash of the season's first thunderstorm;
• the splash of boots and tires in puddles;
• the peeping and croaking of spring peepers, tree and wood frogs;
• the buzzing of bees; and,
• the "thwap" of a baseball being caught in a glove and the crack of a bat hitting ball

drip, drip, plip, plop signals melting ice and snow

Photo by J. Harrington

What have we missed? What are your favorite sounds of early Spring?

Spring

By Mary Oliver

I lift my face to the pale flowers
of the rain. They’re soft as linen,
clean as holy water. Meanwhile
my dog runs off, noses down packed leaves
into damp, mysterious tunnels.
He says the smells are rising now
stiff and lively; he says the beasts
are waking up now full of oil,
sleep sweat, tag-ends of dreams. The rain
rubs its shining hands all over me.
My dog returns and barks fiercely, he says
each secret body is the richest advisor,
deep in the black earth such fuming
nuggets of joy!

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Previews of coming attractions

Have you yet started to think about how sweet the sounds of melting snow will be. There'll be the high-pitched plinks of water drops dripping. The softly susurrating splashes of rivulets coursing beside and under disappearing snow banks. Gutters and drainpipes will be hissing with flows and fountains as snowflakes free themselves from rooftop entrapments.

How soon will Winter flow away?

Photo by J. Harrington

Much of this water will flow over still frozen ground to local creeks, brooks and streams. Later, as the frost leaves the ground, the late melting flows will help replenish groundwater, flowing down before it travels across. Sometime next month, unless we have very bad karma, shallow local ponds and marshes should start to become ice-free. All of this will be coming about approximately when the sap starts flowing in our local maple sugarbush. Days nicely above freezing complement nights that dip below 32℉ to provide an abundance of sap that, when boiled, becomes syrup. Minnesota state parks offer a number of syruping sessions with hands on information and demonstration sessions from early March to mid-April.

Shall we start a "pool" on ice out dates?

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, back at the feeders, a cardinal pair have been seen much more frequently and yesterday we finally saw both pileated woodpeckers at the same time. It looks as though we'll have a breeding pair nesting somewhere nearby this Spring. All in all, we're looking forward to the opportunities to "go with the flow."

The Thaw

Henry David Thoreau, 1817- 1862

I saw the civil sun drying earth’s tears —
Her tears of joy that only faster flowed,
Fain would I stretch me by the highway side,
To thaw and trickle with the melting snow,
That mingled soul and body with the tide,
I too may through the pores of nature flow.
But I alas nor tinkle can nor fume,
One jot to forward the great work of Time,
‘Tis mine to hearken while these ply the loom,
So shall my silence with their music chime.

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Poetry saving America Day 14 #NationalPoetryMonth

We're back on known ground today. Tony Hoagland writes extensively, and intensively, about the thirteenth in his list of Twenty Poems That Could Save America. We find that there is a wonderful degree of complementarity between Muriel Rukeyser's  “Ballad of Orange and Grape” and Robert Reich's The Common Good, which we are now nearly finished reading. We also believe it not too great a stretch to suggest that comparable concerns are raised and addressed in The Lost Words, an incomparable treasure by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. When poets align with public policy professors to alert us of the dangers in corrupting language, we would be wise to heed their words of warning.

words -- carved in stone

Photo by J. Harrington

poetry rehabilitates language

Muriel Rukeyser’s “Ballad of Orange and Grape” can teach us something about the fundamental import of language. Charming and didactic, the poem asks what it means when language is allowed to be unreliable. What, it wonders, happens to culture then?

After you finish your work
after you do your day
after you’ve read your reading
after you’ve written your say —
you go down the street to the hot dog stand,
one block down and across the way.
On a blistering afternoon in East Harlem in the twentieth century.
. . .

Frankfurters, frankfurters sizzle on the steel
where the hot-dog-man leans —
nothing else on the counter
but the usual two machines,
the grape one, empty, and the orange one, empty,
I face him in between.
A black boy comes along, looks at the hot dogs, goes on walking.

I watch the man as he stands and pours
in the familiar shape
bright purple in the one marked ORANGE
orange in the one marked GRAPE,
the grape drink in the machine marked ORANGE
and orange drink in the GRAPE.
Just the one word large and clear, unmistakable, on each machine.

I ask him: How can we go on reading
and make sense out of what we read? —
How can they write and believe what they’re writing,
the young ones across the street,
while you go on pouring grape into ORANGE
and orange into the one marked GRAPE — ?
. . .

He looks at the two machines and he smiles
and he shrugs and smiles and pours again.
It could be violence and nonviolence
it could be white and black  women and men
it could be war and peace or any
binary system, love and hate, enemy, friend.
Yes and no, be and not-be, what we do and what we don’t do.

On a corner in East Harlem
garbage, reading, a deep smile, rape,
forgetfulness, a hot street of murder,
misery, withered hope,
a man keeps pouring grape into ORANGE
and orange into the one marked GRAPE,
pouring orange into GRAPE and grape into ORANGE forever.

Rukeyser’s overt educational intention here may evoke a reflex uneasiness among some poetry lovers. When a work of art aims directly at “the public welfare,” the first objection concerns the proper motive of art. What is it art for? Beauty or truth? Entertainment or character building? Is Painting X worth looking at because of its subtle color, its ugliness, its idealism, its truth-telling, or because of its conversation with the history of aesthetics? Is the essence of art the unique expression of individuality, or of a cultural condition? When art is evaluated or loved for its “utility,” its ethical benefits, artists and intellectuals object that it has been demeaned, commodified, and oversimplified. The civic bureaucracy, meanwhile, argues that art is just not verifiable enoughin its beneficence. But if we said that elementary-school playgrounds, with their monkey bars and swing sets, were intended to build hand–eye coordination and balance, would that make playgrounds oppressive, or less fun?

Rukeyser’s poem delivers its crucial idea in brief and forceful form, and although poems need no motive of instruction to justify themselves, hers accomplishes its mission memorably. The American who has read it will never take as given the duplicitous, inaccurate language that surrounds us commercially and politically in the way that Rukeyser’s speaker does. She urges us instead to see the corruption of language as it should be seen: as an ethical betrayal, as nothing less than an existential insult, one with snowballing consequences. Orange for grape, grape for orange — such a commonplace misrepresentation may seem trivial alongside fibs about weapons of mass destruction, yet it can lead into the valleys and mountains of bad faith. “The Ballad of Orange and Grape” provides anyone who has encountered it with a correlative, a reference point by which to recognize how certain worldly forces (in this case, indifference) anesthetize our language and thereby steal our reality.

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Murmuring and buzzing signals of the season #phenology

Last night, despite the heat, we ate on the outdoor deck at the Watershed Cafe. There was an occasional breeze and the constant sound of flowing brooks to cool us. Bees and hornets, although not many, kept trying to taste our ketchup drips and the bright red ketchup bottle. They failed to find any satisfying sweetness but kept looking for some. This morning, about mid-morning, we drove past a couple of handfuls of duck hunters pulling out of the Sunrise River marshes and loading their canoes and duck boats back into their pickups. (The only time we ever unintentionally sank a boat was our canoe during a duck hunt in the South River marshes in Marshfield Massachusetts many, many years ago, but that's a posting for another day.)

bee on Autumn asters

Photo by J. Harrington

Along our driveway, bees continue to visit asters. We wonder if Monday's return to seasonal temperatures will reduce the number of visitors. Hornets are again swarming to a corner of our deck, the same one they head for every year, looking to find a sheltered, overwintering nook. When the cool weather sets in, we'll again see if we can disabuse them of the desirability of their chosen location for a Winter cabin.

male red-winged blackbird

Photo by J. Harrington

The copse of trees South of our house is currently full of red-winged blackbirds chittering and chattering. We suspect the combination of pre-migration season urges combined with the sudden appearance of unusual numbers of humans in local marshes triggered flocking and relocation movements to or trees. The Spring arrival of red-wings is seriously joyous. Autumn's departure is seldom noted, unless we see a murmuration.

                     [Murmurs from the earth of this land]

By Muriel Rukeyser

Murmurs from the earth of this land, from the caves and craters,

       from the bowl of darkness. Down watercourses of our

       dragon childhood, where we ran barefoot.

We stand as growing women and men. Murmurs come down

        where water has not run for sixty years.

Murmurs from the tulip tree and the catalpa, from the ax of

        the stars, from the house on fire, ringing of glass; from

        the abandoned iron-black mill.

Stars with voices crying like mountain lions over forgotten

        colors.

Blue directions and a horizon, milky around the cities where the

        murmurs are deep enough to penetrate deep rock.

Trapping the lightning-bird, trapping the red central roots.

You know the murmurs. They come from your own throat.

You are the bridges to the city and the blazing food-plant green;

The sun of plants speaks in your voice, and the infinite shells of

        accretions

A beach of dream before the smoking mirror.

You are close to that surf, and the leaves heated by noon, and

        the star-ax, the miner’s glitter walls. The crests of the sea

Are the same strength you wake with, the darkness is the eyes

        of children forming for a blaze of sight and soon, soon,

Everywhere your own silence, who drink from the crater, the

        nebula, one another, the changes of the soul.

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Freedom Highway!

On a cool, September evening, not a hot August night, Rhiannon Giddens, not Neil Diamond, in The O'Shaughnessy, not a ragged tent, the Better Half [BH] and I attended a real, live, and very lively, performance of a contemporary version of Brother Sister Love's Traveling Salvation Show. [Henceforth in today's posting, comments and observations are strictly attributable to “Yr obt svt." The BH in no way should be presumed to be included in any use of an editorial "we."]

That editorial "we" hasn't been so moved, so engaged and seen such presence and looseness combined on stage since about 50 years ago when we were in the audience at Janis Joplin's concert on a hot August night in Harvard Stadium. [The first link in this posting takes you to an NPR review of Giddens' Freedom Highway album, including samplings of her singing.] If you haven't yet heard her and you enjoy folk, blues, country, or Americana, you really owe it to yourself to at least explore her singing. We still can't figure out where, in her relatively tall, thin body, she hides such an awesome voice, but it's there somewhere and we're glad and grateful.

Many of the concert's songs evoked youthful nostalgia and provoked rethinking of today's political-social-cultural environment. We haven't, quite yet, returned to days such as the one in mid-September 1963, when white supremacist members of the Ku Klux Klan bombed a Southern Baptist church, killing four young black girls. For now we have spared ourselves horrors such as those captured in Richard Farina's song Birmingham Sunday, which Giddens performed hauntingly last night. Almost as a counterpoint, she achingly sings a rendition of the song, She's Got You, first recorded and made popular by Patsy Cline back in the early 60's. We can't decide if we should be surprised that the range of Giddens' material almost matches her phenomenal vocal range.

We came of age, so to speak, during the 1960's civil rights and subsequent Viet Nam War protests. Songs like Freedom Highway (a 1965 civil rights protest song written by Roebuck Staples and the title track of The Staple Singers' album of the same name) and Birmingham Sunday are deeply embedded in the seed banks of our memories. After last night's performances, we find ourselves wondering if we've become so out of touch that we don't recognize any topical songs enjoyed by younger activists in today's struggles, or if such music is missing and its addition could contribute to more successful, progressive outcomes for contemporary efforts to create a saner, more just and caring world. Does the Occupy movement or 350.org have "theme" songs? Not yet, maybe not ever, according to this story on HuffPost, but maybe sometime, "we" hope?

                     Song

By Muriel Rukeyser

Make and be eaten, the poet says,

Lie in the arms of nightlong fire,

To celebrate the waking, wake.

Burn in the daylong light; and praise

Even the mother unappeased,

Even the fathers of desire.

Blind go the days, but joy will see

Agreements of music; they will wind

The shaking of your dance; no more

Will the ambiguous arm-waves spell

Confusion of the blessing given.

Only and finally declare

Among the purest shapes of grace

The waking of the face of fire,

The body of waking and the skill

To make your body such a shape

That all the eyes of hope shall stare.

That all the cries of fear shall know,

Staring in their bird-pierced song;

Lines of such penetration make

That shall bind our loves at last.

Then from the mountains of the lost,

All the fantasies shall wake,

Strong and real and speaking turn

Wherever flickers your unreal.

And my strong ghosts shall fade and pass

My love start fiery as grass

Wherever burn my fantasies,

Wherever burn my fantasies.

April 1955

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

Winter: for the birds #phenology

If weather forecasters were at all civilized, they would have waited until the pain of election season was over before bringing up the possible pain of another "Winter Vortex." Minnesota seems to be targeted this year for below average temperatures and above average snow fall. The real question will be how much below or above average are we going to get?

downy woodpecker

Photo by J. Harrington

This unseasonable pain and aggravation does have a brighter side (that's brighter, not bright). It's started me thinking about Winter bird sounds that replace Spring and Summer calls. Based on who (whom?) I expect to see at the feeder between now and late March, are the wilder "pet sounds" of the season to come:

• blue jay - "jeer"
• chickadee - "dee - dee - dee"
• red-breasted nuthatch - "yank-yank"
• white-breasted nuthatch - "wha-wha-wha"
• downy woodpecker - "pik"
• hairy woodpecker - "peek"
• red-bellied woodpecker - "kwirr"
• pileated woodpecker - "wuk - wuk - wuk"
• goldfinch - "po-ta-to-chip" 
• cardinal - "cheer - cheer - cheer"
• others - to be determined

pileated woodpecker

Photo by J. Harrington

Away from the feeder, we'll hear the occasional crow caw and raven krawk. Evenings we sometimes hear coyotes howl. Turns out that, in addition to howling winds and whispering, sifting snow, our North Country's silent season isn't all that quiet after all. What would you add that we've left off our list?

A Question About Birds

by Billy Collins

I am going to sit on a rock near some water
or on a slope of grass
under a high ceiling of white clouds,
 
and I am going to stop talking
so I can wander around in that spot
the way John James Audubon might have wandered
 
through a forest of speckled sunlight,
stopping now and then to lean
against an elm, mop his brow,
 
and listen to the songs of birds.
Did he wonder, as I often do, 
how they regard the songs of other species?
 
Would it be like listening to the Chinese
merchants at an outdoor market?
Or do all the birds perfectly understand one another?
 
Or is that nervous chittering
I often hear from the upper branches
the sound of some tireless little translator?

~ from horoscopes for the dead (Random House, 2011)

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Singers of the Season's Songs

It's 10 days until Christmas, about a week until Winter Solstice, and my head is full of Christmas confetti thoughts and song lyrics. For example, Bob Dylan didn't record his Christmas album until he was well into his 60's. To my knowledge, Janis Joplin never recorded a Christmas album. If she had lived longer, would she have recorded one? What would it have sounded like?

"'rocking around the Christmas tree"

Photo by J. Harrington

Having recently played Melissa Etheridge's Christmas album, I suspect Janis might have had a similar take on the songs of the season. It would have been interesting and entertaining if we could have had that pleasure. At the folkie end of the spectrum, Joan Baez recorded almost entirely traditional material on her Noel album. She included "Christmas in Washington" on Dark Chords on a Big Guitar. Judy Collins has both all on a wintry night and Christmas with Judy Collins, with the same fourteen songs on both, plus two others on "Christmas." Joni Mitchell doesn't seem to have a Christmas album but her song River has the lyrics "it's coming on Christmas" and captures what for too many are the melancholy feelings that are triggered by the season.

One of my earliest favorite Christmas albums was recorded by Elvis Presley, the eponymous Elvis' Christmas Album, which is included in RollingStone magazine's The 25 Greatest Christmas Albums of All Time. Their list includes a number of albums I wouldn't give house room to, plus quite a few that are on my list. Maybe that's why Santa has to check his lists twice.

I Hear America Singing

By Walt Whitman 

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Springing from Winter

© harrington

Although many of us rely on the calendar and the snow cover to tell us it's still Winter, wilder creatures are already behaving, or soon will, in anticipation of Spring. Yesterday we considered the increase in Spring scents. Today, let's contemplate contributions to cacophony. Back in the woods above, a pair of great horned owls may be acting horny (great horny owls?). Egg laying will begin in a week or two, if it hasn't already. Look for chickadees to soon be perched near the tree tops singing dee-dee-dee. Cardinals begin tuning up their mating songs and getting ready to attack their own reflections in handy windows. The sounds of Spring grow from a small chorus to a crescendo over the next several weeks as song birds are joined by waterfowl calls, crane cries and the trilling and whispering of water released from its frozen prison. Spring peepers, referred to as "pinkletinks" by one of my favorite rugged outdoorsmen writers, are a month or so from serenading each other and us from nearby tree branches and damp spots in the back yard. Robins will be returning. Ravens will begin acting like acrobats and looking to establish their own territories. Winter's sleep is becoming more shallow and easily interrupted. Celebrate each day's growth of warm and cool sounds in My Minnesota and stop by again soon.