Sunday, April 16, 2006

Cherry Blossoms & Robin Songs

I relearned the spring call of the Robin. I'm not actually sure if it is indeed the Spring call, and not the generic "Hey, I'm a robin" call, but I hear it in the spring, or, it reaches my conciousness in the Spring. It reached my mind's eye, and ear, yesterday again. Immediately I recognized and loved it - yes, you are one of my friends. You there, song, and your russet-vested friend. Robins are almost always portrayed as female in cartoons, but I see them as distinctly male. Oh, and canadian geese. Those dudes are dudes. Gentlemen, really - awkward & bumbling, yet kind and dignified old British gentlemen you might find at clubs, you know, where they sit in big leather chairs and smoke pipes and get red in the face over pish-posh and all that with a dry & clever wit. I can see geese doing that.
My sister and I saw one today, black neck in the air, trumpeting a series of evening honks. I think it was a love song. Some female goose (wherever they are) I hope was extremely taken by it, because I thought it was mostly humorous. But then, maybe girl geese list "sense of humor" high on the attractive-qualities list.
It's so awkwardly beautiful to think of all of these animals all around me thinking urgent Spring thoughts - hooking up with the females, going out on dates to parks. Songs, swoons, bright tail feathers erect and waggling.
"Hey everybody!" I want to shout "Lets have a meeting here in the grassy patch tomorrow about this whole Spring mating fuss - lets figure all this out - lets approach this rationally" Next thing I know, I'm up on a tree branch, yodeling & sporting a new Italia Sport jacket.

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