A Song In The Dark

Yesterday my wife sat on the patio just after sunlight began to chase away the darkness of a calm Sonoran Desert night. I think what she sought in those first minutes of light was a peaceful beginning of the new day, a slow start. What she got was the song of a bird in the mesquite tree, then another sound from the woodpecker on the very top of the tall saguaro in the neighbor’s yard, then the almost harmony of wrens and finches and doves and quail. The amazing app on her smartphone identified 19 different bird songs; each bird thought she had come out to listen specifically to its song, so what started out as peaceful porch time became a convergence of chaos. Lovely chaos, yes, but still. I must add that she loved every minute of the patio performance. What a wonderful way to welcome the new day.

I, on the other hand, write this note in the still-darkness of the night. It’s black outside. Few lights are on in the neighborhood. My clock says 4 a.m. and here I sit, alone, at my computer waiting for inspiration to fall out of the sky. And then I noticed it. In the background of my
waiting and hoping, I hear a single bird song out there in the blackness. One song. Same notes over and over again. One bird who doesn’t have to have light to sing. In fact, maybe he or she prefers the darkness. That’s clearly the case this morning. One little voice in the enormity of night, perhaps calling the other birds to this day’s performance, maybe just beating the crowd so that his song could be heard distinctly, maybe the bearer of a gift just for me. I can’t see him, but I know he’s there. Even the darkness cannot blot out his insistence on singing. Between you and me, this bird doesn’t have a professionally trained chirp, but you can tell he loves to sing.

The curse of being me after all these years is that I wonder about the meaning of most of life’s strange little encounters. Why nineteen birds in yesterday’s early light and one bird in today’s pre-light darkness. I can only conclude that the invisible singer just loves to sing, feels the almost compelling necessity to make music whether anybody listens or not. The value of the song doesn’t depend on the presence of a hearer. The song is one bird’s gift to the sleepy universe.

An aside: a news item just flashed on my smartphone screen. It says that unless specific demands are met in the U.S. – Iran war, a “whole civilization will be wiped out.” That comment is followed by a quotation from a former U.S. President: “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” Stunning: one little bird releases a song in the darkness, anonymous bird that blesses the hearer. Or, a sinister threat from war’s blackness that speaks of destroying a civiliztion. Two voices emerge from the darkness.
Sing, bird. Don’t stop. Sing us into the Light. Sing us back into humanity.