The Path to Creativity V: With Ears for Seeing

Late June in the bosque, among the trees, I hear before I see anything, lots of birds chattering in the Cottonwoods.  Some high pitched squawking mixed with more melodic birdsongs gets me smiling as I walk in with my bike; it's such a unique chorus today.  When we look or search for something it is often hard to find, like misplaced car-keys, so I know I need to be patient, get quiet, find a roost and wait for what is entering my ears to become visible to my eyes. Hummingbirds abound and in short time I recognize the outline of a hawk-type beak on a bird in a tree, back-lit from the still early morning sun.   Binoculars to my faculty of sight, details of this rather fuzzy brown shape become a bit clearer - it has distinct vertical markings on the side of its face and neck- very occupied pecking at something in the cavity of a broken tree limb.  I hear myself asking, "What are you?"  And then, settling into my heartspace again, thinking, "oh, just enjoy the view."

A man on his bike pauses and I point out the bird as it flies off.  He says it is a Kestrel, a male Kestrel, then the female arrives into view and they both land on the same limb. 

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

     but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, "Stay awhile."

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,

"and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine."

-Mary Oliver

After the kindly man named Michael shows up to synchronistically answer my question, "What are you?," the pair glide wide through the treetops. Flickering through the green leaves, they show off flits of chevron-banded feathers on their pointy swept-back wings. (I read they can have a two foot wing span and can see ultraviolet light; they are small falcons once called by other names.) While relishing this rarity before me, the two Kestrels are joined by a third and with a flourish like the fan in the hand of a flamenco dancer, a fourth one appears! I am so grateful to catch sight of their flights of joy. Just as Coleman Barks says about Mary Oliver's poems, "I ascent to every line,"  I ascent with each glimpsed wing.

Touched by this majesty while epic fires are blazing through forests north in Colorado, hundreds of homes destroyed, I wonder about all the wildlife. How many birds and other animals have been lost  as hotspots continue to burn throughout the southwestern states, six fires in Utah, many in Arizona as well as here in New Mexico? The devastation is surreal, global warming sure feels real, each day this week, temperatures are in the triple digits. 

Today is the last day the park systems will be open to the public here, a cautionary step probably for the rest of the summer of 2012. This very area, where I watch Kestrels, burned on both sides of the Rio Grande river in 2003. Amidst the loss around us, all the uncertainty in the world, I am so thankful the Kestrels, by any name, grace me with their aerial display.

To hear Mary Oliver reading:

and with Coleman Barks: