18 May 2011

Well Written Wednesdays: It threads through forests

mockingbird


The birds have started singing in the valley. Their February squawks and naked chirps are fully fledged now, and long lyrics fly in the air. Birdsong catches in the mountains' rim and pools in the valley; it threads through forests, it slides down creeks. At my house a wonderful thing happens. The mockingbird that nests each year in the front-yard spruce strikes up his chant in high places, and one of those high places is my chimney. When he sings there, the hollow chimney acts as a sound box, like the careful emptiness inside a cello or violin, and the notes of the song gather fullness and reverberate through the house.

-from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

{photo credit: shima1313 on Flickr}

No comments:

Post a Comment