Accounting for Live Things
Last night, around 9:30, Peter woke up from what was supposed to be his night-time sleep and I volunteered to try and get him back to sleep. Nothing would comfort him, so I stepped outside and into a roar of tree frogs and peepers. It was beautiful and so, so loud. We walked around a minute or two and he went back to sleep.
This morning, I woke up with Peter fussing at 3:40 and again needed to step outside to get him to calm down, but this was almost completely silent. All the frogs must be sleeping. I could hear a dim chorus of bug strings, crickets, I guess and there was a tiny breeze, but it made the trees crackle and the leaves clap and water drops fall to the ground.
And now its 5:30 and I hear one bird song. I do not see any light, but this little bird must begin early and call up the sun. I know from a couple of days ago that by the time we get to 6:30 the noise outside will be louder than the one at night with hundreds of bird songs all going at once.
So there are three moments in time ... night things singing each other awake, the quiet moment when both the night creatures and the day creatures slumber and the morning when the first bird begins its song.
This morning, I woke up with Peter fussing at 3:40 and again needed to step outside to get him to calm down, but this was almost completely silent. All the frogs must be sleeping. I could hear a dim chorus of bug strings, crickets, I guess and there was a tiny breeze, but it made the trees crackle and the leaves clap and water drops fall to the ground.
And now its 5:30 and I hear one bird song. I do not see any light, but this little bird must begin early and call up the sun. I know from a couple of days ago that by the time we get to 6:30 the noise outside will be louder than the one at night with hundreds of bird songs all going at once.
So there are three moments in time ... night things singing each other awake, the quiet moment when both the night creatures and the day creatures slumber and the morning when the first bird begins its song.
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
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