A VIEW FROM BERKELEY SPRINGS
July 23 Saturday—Joyce’s Shed
Out where there’s so much insisting
on being seen and done in mid-summer,
there’s the rare morning for sleeping in,
or at least for arresting vision.
Maybe it’s to give the sound world
full domain. In this sensate resonance
with an apparent laziness
while the seen-world rests,
the sun fills a crisp breeze and
windsound in leaves
merges with the airs of birdsong.
Birdsong is used loosely here.
For it's chattering mockingbirds,
scream of hawk, rusty
hinges of chickadees or phoebes.
Crows caw too. |
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All this somehow holds together
the field of song that extends
more pleasurably into the towhee’s
“drink-your-tea” and some
melodious chain of notes
that’s wren-like. Probably the song
sparrow plays, too,
and the virtuosity of the wood
thrush resonates with its most
musical quality. But the compelling
thing is the fullness, the lush
variety of all sound
that makes this time and space
so breath-takingly
so saturatingingly
summer-full. |
Many of the music-makers
perch on the dead tree branches
sticking out from the mass
of smothering vines around the door
of the ramshackle out-building
that the old-timer Bill said
used to house the fox hounds |
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What is it about a structure almost falling apart
that’s so magnetic?
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From the first time
Joyce and the shack
stood in the same field,
there’s been some
redemptive force
aligning them. |
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It’s taking me much longer
to gain awareness of it.
I’ve been more like the inspector
of buildings who deigned it
scarce worth a glance, no more
than three cents to condemn it--
“Not worth saving.”
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Later my daughter
with her artist’s
eye demanded
the composition
be kept safe.
She seems drawn
to the play
of shadings
and muted tones.
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So I’ll have to arrest
my limited living space
and wonder.
Maybe their attraction to this
abandoned place comes
from the liminality of vines--
even if they are poison
ivy, invasive Virginia
creeper, and trash grape-
vines--that venture in
through the walls and roof. |
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we'll leave that old “dead”
tree alone and listen close
in the different lights.
This wasted space may be
singing too—the way
the most important words
often go unsaid.
Even if they are
finally found
and spoken, how long
may they hang about
waiting to be heard—
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Last Updated:
March 5, 2006
©2005 dochorsetales
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