The Gryphon's Feather Studio

visiting the graveyard

  

 

Visiting the Graveyard

by Mary Oliver

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I think of death

it is a bright enough city

and every year more faces there

are familiar

but not a single one

notices me,

though I long for it,

and when they talk together,

which they do

very quietly,

it's in an unknowable language—

I can catch the tone

but understand not a single word—

and when I open my eyes

there's the mysterious field, the beautiful trees.

There are the stones.

— Mary Oliver,

from "Red Bird"

A Line-Storm Song

A Line-Storm Song

by Robert Frost

The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,  

  The road is forlorn all day,  

Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,  

  And the hoof-prints vanish away.  

The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,

  Expend their bloom in vain.  

Come over the hills and far with me,  

  And be my love in the rain.  

The birds have less to say for themselves  

  In the wood-world’s torn despair

Than now these numberless years the elves,  

  Although they are no less there:  

All song of the woods is crushed like some  

  Wild, easily shattered rose.  

Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,

  Where the boughs rain when it blows.  

There is the gale to urge behind  

  And bruit our singing down,  

And the shallow waters aflutter with wind  

  From which to gather your gown.     

What matter if we go clear to the west,  

  And come not through dry-shod?  

For wilding brooch shall wet your breast  

  The rain-fresh goldenrod.  

Oh, never this whelming east wind swells    

  But it seems like the sea’s return  

To the ancient lands where it left the shells  

  Before the age of the fern;  

And it seems like the time when after doubt  

  Our love came back amain.       

Oh, come forth into the storm and rout  

  And be my love in the rain.

nest: no vacancy

Late last summer, some enterprising birds made a nest on top of our garage door opening mechanism.  After a few months, Joe removed it, and placed it on a shelf near the door, thinking the littlest little would find it fascinating.  

Last week, a pair of robins decided it was the perfect location to start a family.  This is crazy because the garage has a lot of foot traffic in and out, and we park right beside where the nest is placed! We also use the power tools located in that garage, and Sunny has a little kitchen play space in there, as well. I spent a good bit of time in that garage last weekend, using the circular saw and some other rather noisy tools!  There was a pack of rambunctious 7 year-olds playing house and doing a great deal of "cooking" and tending to loudly wailing baby dolls.  I have NO idea why these birds decided this would be a good nest, other than they didn't have to build it!

One day last week, as I went to get into my car, a robin flew out of the garage, zipping right by my head.  When I looked the direction from where this bird came, I saw the nest, and thought, "Oh, no!  Not there!"  I climbed up on a crate and gently stuck my hand into the nest, and felt the smooth eggs.   

The eggs gestate for 12-14 days, and then of course, there will be baby birds...  We cannot avoid this space for over a month!!  I feel badly, but either they will have to adapt to our presence or abandon the nest.  On the upside, there is no shortage of robins around here, and certainly not in our yard, where I can see three other occupied nests in the backyard alone. Robins typically lay two to three clutches of eggs a season, and there are usually four eggs in each clutch. 

Still, I feel guilty!!!