tender voices

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"Sing on there in the swamp,
O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call,
I hear, I come presently, I understand you"*

Although Whitman was thinking about his beloved hermit thrush, I think the lines fit just as well with the chorus frogs that have been calling from the local wetlands the past few weeks.

Creeeeeeeeak! Creeeeeeeak! Creeeeeeeak!

These tiny, tiny frogs do exemplify Whitman's all out lust—to the point of being erotic—for nature and all of its yearnings. Its seasonal rhythms. Its cries and whispers.

There are several chorus frogs in the above photo. Do you see them? Perhaps not. They're much too bashful and tender to see. But you sure can hear them.

"Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song,
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.

O liquid and free and tender!

O wild and loose to my soul -- O wondrous singer!"*

* Lines from "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" by Walt Whitman

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solitary, the thrush

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"In the swamp,

in secluded recesses,

A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.

Solitary, the thrush,
The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.

Song of the bleeding throat!
Death’s outlet song of life—(for well, dear brother, I know
If thou wast not gifted to sing, thou would’st surely die.)”


- From When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d
an elegy written by Walt Whitman
shortly after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

Poet Whitman knew this species. Heard it sing its warbling song, shy and hidden.

Sadly, at this time of the year on its winter range here in the South, the hermit thrush does not sing. There's no need. No territory to defend. No female to woo. No dead president to mourn.

Cornell describes it as, "An unassuming bird with a lovely, melancholy song." And that's pretty much spot on. Unassuming.

I first took the above photograph and posted it, four years ago. I'm pleased to say the hermits are back. I saw one quietly, and indeed, unassuming, hoping around my home in the woods near my studio last Tuesday morning.

Lucky me.

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a fresh bed for spring

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"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth."

- Walt Whitman from "Song of the Open Road"

Ahh, the first day of spring! Let me sleep in the open air or at least with the good earth somewhere beneath me.

Speaking of which, it’s time to freshen up our mattresses, the cleavers are up. Also known as goosegrass, stickywilly, catchweed or simply bedstraw, this gangly, long stemmed climbing plant sprawls over the ground and whatever else happens to get in their way. Both the leaves and stems have fine hairs tipped with tiny hooks, making them cling to clothes and fur much like Velcro.

Our mountaineer ancestors gathered cleavers to re-stuff their mattresses in the spring. Because of the hooky hairs, the lumps of cleavers clump together and retain their plumpish mattress shape.

They also brought a much needed freshness to the cabin.

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dalliance

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Forgive me.

I'm running behind, the past six months, concentrating on my family's needs, my job, finishing a book project, it's been somewhat overwhelming. (Sarah Brobst recently asked me: If you can be overwhelmed and underwhelmed, can you simply be whelmed? And, indeed, yes you can.)

There was a stack of forlorn mail that I haven't had time to sort, on the end of my desk, there in the breakfast nook, near the window with the hummingbird feeder, and tackling it recently, I soon uncovered this January/February issue of Audubon with their photography contest prize-winners.

The cover features the grand prize winner, a photo by Rob Palmer. Wow! Gosh! Outstanding! And whatever other superlative you care to use.

I'm sure I'm not the first to see it and think of Walt Whitman and his famous poem "The Dalliance of the Eagles." Dalliance means "amorous play," and please note like the extended play of eagles, the poem is one long extended sentence, a sort of word play, if you will...

Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)

Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,

The rushing amorous contact high in space together,

The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,

Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,

In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling

Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull,

A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,

Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting,
their separate diverse flight,

She hers, he his, pursuing.

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clear and sweet

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If you can indulge me with a little more "good-natured" Whitman...

"Clear and sweet is my soul....and clear and sweet
is all that is not my soul."

- From "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman. Photo of West Prong of the Little Pigeon River a few miles downstream from my hometown, Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

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a short bee's life

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If we get to come back after we die, let me return as a simple bee so that I might spend my short insect life lost in the sumptuous, sensual folds of this hospitable lily, becoming intoxicated in toto by the buttery color of yellow.

What could be more satisfying? N'est-ce pas.

(Can you tell that I've been reading a lot of Walt—enjoy your life, drink deep its pleasures—Whitman of late.)

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open road

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This dovetails nicely into yesterday's nature walk, which left me reaching for my Whitman.

“Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road….”

“The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is happiness,
I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times,
Now it flows unto us, we are rightly charged.”

- From “Song of the Open Road” by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

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beautiful and uncut

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“A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands,
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he...

“And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass”


Yesterday's dead nurture today's living. You can only guess just what type of native warm season grass Whitman was thinking of when he wrote the above lines, but I’m sure it wasn’t a wimpy, creeping fescue. Perhaps it was a hardy broom sage—golden, uncut and beautiful.

- From “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman

- Photo taken at Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge

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out of the cradle

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One of the highlights of winter are the visiting loners, the hermit thrushes.

In the north, where they nest, they're known for their melodious songs. Here they are generally mute, having nothing to really sing about; there's no pressure to claim territory or attract mates. The only pressure is to find food, conserve energy and survive. There's nothing to sing about there; there's no poetry.

Walt Whitman uses the hermit thrush as a symbol of the American voice: wild, free and poetic in his poem "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking."

" From the memories of the bird that chanted to me"

Walking at Ijams the other day, I encountered one of the hermits in the trees near the main parking lot. Although they tend to be loners, they're rather salient, often remaining perched on a limb for awhile, giving you a good long look. And even though it was silent, it chanted me nonetheless.

-Photo taken at Ijams Nature Center

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