This first one is a bit of journaling from last summer, an early morning awakening in the quiet of an Acadia National Park campsite. Later that day, I received the call that my friend, Freddy, had died.
The Day I Heard
I heard the first bird of morning, the distant telling of the syrinx through the fog. At first there was nothing and I had been sure night would last forever, but the first bird knew--perhaps he was high along the mountain ridge, watching for the first lightening of dawn, or perhaps it was only that suddenly out of darkness, he slowly came to see his own form, the curve of breast, the quick twitch of a feather out of place in the black breeze, and that small moment of self-perception--that was how he knew it would be day again. He came to see himself, and that was how he knew.
I will never forget that sound--I promised myself, and yet I have already started to forget it. The charm and call slipping wet and nude from my mind, clumsy as a child's that cannot hold onto much of anything, but knows, only too well, the smooth surface of letting things go.
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