Morning in New England

by Wayne G. Barber

When the early bird sings at four a.m., the only other sound is that dam owl that took up residence in our back yard this year. Somewhere on the Atlantic the sun is already rising, but at our place the sky at that hour is no brighter than tarnished silver, a superior dullness in the eastern windows. The early bird is extremely early, and it seems to have perched on the bedside lamp, so piercing is its call. In the phonetic language birders use to represent birdsong, the early bird says, " Why don't-you get up ?- Why don't you get up ?" But at four a.m. it's all too easy to drift back to sleep. Soon the early bird seems to be saying, in dreamlike fashion, "Guess what-you've just-won ! Guess what- you've just won ! It's worth putting on some clothes and going to find out.
 It's forty-nine degrees outside. The grass is wet with dew. Breath hangs in the air almost as quiet
ly as Venus in the southern sky. The early bird, a nesting robin by the sound of it, is stationed in a bough of a pine across the landscaped area. The clarity of the robin's call is a measure of the silence.
  It will be a windy day, the trees full of their own noises by afternoon, but for now their stillness enlarges the scale on which this solo bird performs. When the robin pauses for a moment, I can hear everything in the world, because there's nothing to hear.
 Winter mornings hinge on just a change in light without much change in sound. But a summer morning when the sky first glows is a cathedral of anticipation. The choirs that Shakespeare had in mind are neither bare nor ruined, only silent, until one by one, and then all in a rush, the birds fill in. It was never quite so clear before this morning's walk on the deck that song is an attribute to light. The birds understand it perfectly. A finch begins to call in a lazy, pulse, the rhythm of an inexpert seamstress on a old fashioned Singer. A cardinal starts to spear the air with his voice. Down at the foot of the raised beds a cowbird suddenly fizzes and pops. The canopy of trees is answered by the understory, and the tall grasses in the farmers field fill with the birdsong too. One by one the birds add depth to the horizon, until at last there's room for the sun to rise.

  For some reason the sight of a yearling white tail deer carried me back a couple of years, to a hospice room in Pascoag where my father in law, Abel, whom I'd known for half my life, lay in a coma, dying. All the life support had ceased, and those of us who had gathered around knew that the self within his head had withdrawn for good. But a vigorous breathing continued, one day, then another,another and I can still feel the force of those breaths, the elemental power of the reflex that drove them. The conscious life we live seams so fragile that it comes as a shock to witness the organic thrust toward living that underlies it. I never understood the optimism or the power of that reflex until I watched for hour after hour, the raw persistence of those unthinkable breaths, which finally ceased while my family and I stood over him one night. Our breathing seemed shallow by comparison.