Author: Christopher Hall

Why I Wake Early- Mary Oliver

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and crotchety–

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light–
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

I’ve been watching these guys for the past week or so. I’ve been carrying my camera with me and after work today, I went outside and heard their call. Out came my camera, but most of them had migrated across the street. I thought that if I was going to get any images, sitting where I was wouldn’t get it done. I jumped in my car and crossed the ‘Highway of Death’, otherwise known as E. Pine Log Road. Amazingly, there was a hole in the traffic and I crossed relatively painlessly.

For about ten minutes, maybe a few more, I held my camera at the ready, seeing the birds leave the trees to swarm as they’ve done, and then to return. With 300+ photos, I’m sure I’ll find a few favorites, but this grabbed me because of the enormity of the swarm.

Simple reminders of the resilience of nature.

“I’s been livin’ a long time in yesterday, Sandy chile, an’ I knows there ain’t no room in de world fo’ nothin’ mo’n love. I know, chile! Ever’thing there is but lovin’ leaves a rust on yo’ soul. An’ to love sho ‘nough, you got to have a spot in yo’ heart fo’ ever’body – great an’ small, white an’ black, an’ them what’s good an’ them what’s evil – ‘cause love ain’t got no crowded-out places where de good ones stay an’ de bad ones can’t come in. When it gets that way, then it ain’t love.”
― Langston Hughes, Not Without Laughter