Bring me chimes

Last night this sky ended the day. Swoon. Today, squirrel gangs were running up and down the trees, leaping branch to branch, down to fences and into yards. At least nine squirrels. (I think earlier a few had run across my roof.) There were two groups and at a certain point there was some sort of call and a standoff ensued, followed by lots of running along the neighbor’s new fence. I watched until the last squirrel disappeared into a Sweet Gum tree, three yards over. Earlier a squirrel had risked life and limb to look for a peanut in the lawn while a fifty or so starlings had decided the front lawn was theirs, every time they shifted into the air the squirrel ran to the tree and then back, and then bird flight and then back; I hope the calories were worth it.

It has been a rainy day and a thunderstorm moved through at one point. The birds scrambling about out my office window were covered in miniscule rain drops. Lovely little bits of light they periodically shook off as they dug through leaves. A good assortment of sparrows and finches and dark eyed junco, cardinals (of course), chickadees, the tufted titmouse couple (💓), doves and a few blue jays that needed to come by in case they were missing something.

So: it is rainy and warmish, but no wind today, no tornado brewing (or forecast), no snow either. Almost solstice. It was quiet today. It is quiet now. I tried to find a poem about quiet and found this anti-quiet poem.

Save me

Save me. Save me from this need for stillness,
this quiet house soaking into my skin.
Fill me with song, syllables of sound,
banging drums, birds eager to tell stories.

Tell the coyotes to bring their yellow eyes
and grey muzzles, to lift me on their cries,
let me howl until my voice matches theirs.
Save me. Find a way to open my stalled

and silent heart. Fill me with aspen and oak
leaves, the hallowed rush of pine needles
chanting in the night. Locust and poplar,
willow and birch quivering in breezes

filling the day with chorus and hymn. Save me.
Bring me chimes, horns, reeds singing
like love struck frogs, crickets trapped
by solstice, cats crazed with heat.

Open the hours, open the night, let the stars
clash and burn like July 6th firecrackers,
let the falling ice cascade outside my window
open your mouth and speak. Save me.

       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And from bell hooks, this ties in too.