Mockingbird on Dogwood

Mockingbird on Dogwood / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 unframed / $68

sold!

IN THE SPRING, WHEN WE LIVED in Portsmouth, VA,  a mockingbird sang outside our window. It was a virtuoso, with more than a dozen songs in its repertoire. 

All well and good - except that this mockingbird insisted on singing at night. And he favored a branch of a tree right outside our bedroom window. For a month or so every year, probably during mating season, he kept us awake, night after night after long, exhausting night, repeating his 13 or 14 or 15 songs again and again, never in the same order, so every time you thought you might be able to fall asleep, he'd start a different pattern, a different path, and draw us in again. 

It was maddening. But the songs were beautiful, exquisite, and made a memory that still makes me smile today. 

***

Gratitude

This morning, I am grateful for the beauty of the huge, nearly full moon, shining so bright in the middle of the night that it made the trees cast shadows on the lawn. Its beauty took my breath away. I'm grateful for anything that stirs me so deeply. 

What makes you grateful today? 

***

For Today

The Mockingbird

All summer

the mockingbird

in his pearl-gray coat

and his white-windowed wings

flies

from the hedge to the top of the pine

and begins to sing, but it's neither

lilting nor lovely,

for he is the thief of other sounds -

whistles and truck brakes and dry hinges

plus all the songs 

of other birds in his neighborhood; 

mimicking and elaborating,

he sings with humor and bravado, 

so I have to wait a long time

for the softer voice of his own life

to come through. He begins

by giving up all the usual flutter

and settling down on the pine's forelock

then looking around

as though to make sure he's alone;

then he slaps each wing against his breast,

where his heart is,

and, copying nothing, begins

easing into it

as though it was not half so easy

as rollicking,

as though his subject now

was his true self,

which of course was as dark and secret

as anyone else's

and it was too hard - 

perhaps you understand - 

to speak or to sing it

to anything or anyone

but the sky. 

- Mary Oliver,  in "A Thousand Mornings"