![]() Their soft cooing “ Where ARE you?” notes flow around lava rocks, lupine, bunchgrass, and forget-me-nots starring the sky floor in purple. It’s time to tread barefoot into the rain–slowly to not scare away the California quail hobnobbing on the ground. ![]() Do I hear a difference as the wren sings from an airy perch or within the many canted leaves? The singer flits from lower manzanita to upper lilac and plum, eschewing the heights of the ponderosas. Where the canyon wren notes are falling waters from a cliff, the house wren melody traces the jumbled layers of the lilac, plum, manzanita, and ceanothus that is just now blossoming in creamy clustered blooms. It makes sense that canyon wrens shift positions to find varying resonances of notes reflecting, echoing, and amplifying beauty. Yes! Why wouldn’t a singing bird seek resonant acoustics? I think of the glissading notes of a canyon wren coming to that perfect taper within your heart. The space cups each note of the blackcap’s song, causing them to linger and ripen.” Don’t you think this book belongs outside? (Our front yard in the background)Įpiphany. The blackcap sings from a chosen perch at the edge of a miniature amphitheater in the limestone– a place, he writes… “in which sound blooms. But most striking to me today is how the sound comes alive in this space.” David is listening to a warbler called a Eurasian blackcap: “The song has a rich timbre, a rapid flow of fluty notes, a performance lauded in bird field guides as one of the finest in Europe. The chapter that leaped into the house wren song out my window is called “Resonant Spaces.” He begins outside a limestone cave in Germany. I tend to read all Haskell’s books in the mornings with coffee when I can be most attentive to the woven lyrical prose, science, and mind-bending connections. I turned then to David George Haskell’s book Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution’s Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction. I began the day as usual with journal writing, an aphorism, and a poetry attempt. House wren sings from on top of the one manzanita in our yard that is struggling to survive for some unknown reason. Then? Two ravens up high in the pines hold a lofty discourse of cacophonous philosophy. The wren song is close–coming I think from a favored perch on top of a manzanita. This morning I’m writing with the window open to finger-tapping of rain on the roof, pattering droplets upon hollyhock leaves, and a tumult of house wren notes drenching my senses. ![]()
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