Sun and Shadow

Three lovely notes he whistled, too soft to be heard
If others sang; but others never sang
In the great beech-wood all that May and June.
No one saw him: I alone could hear him
Though many listened. Was it but four years
Ago? or five? He never came again.

Oftenest when I heard him I was alone,
Nor could I ever make another hear.
La-la-la! he called, seeming far-off—
As if a cock crowed past the edge of the world,
As if the bird or I were in a dream.
Yet that he travelled through the trees and sometimes
Neared me, was plain, though somehow distant still
He sounded. All the proof is—I told men
What I had heard.

                                   I never knew a voice,
Man, beast, or bird, better than this. I told
The naturalists; but neither had they heard
Anything like the notes that did so haunt me,
I had them clear by heart and have them still.
Four years, or five, have made no difference. Then
As now that La-la-la! was bodiless sweet:
Sad more than joyful it was, if I must say
That it was one or other, but if sad
'Twas sad only with joy too, too far off
For me to taste it. But I cannot tell
If truly never anything but fair
The days were when he sang, as now they seem.
This surely I know, that I who listened then,
Happy sometimes, sometimes suffering
A heavy body and a heavy heart,
Now straightway, if I think of it, become
Light as that bird wandering beyond my shore.


The Unknown Bird, by Edward Thomas


I went off this morning for a walk along the Cold Spring Trail and part way up to Great Notch, before taking a short cutoff trail and coming back along the lower portion of the Sluiceway. I have memories of this section of the Sluiceway being very nice, and this morning simply added to the impression. The sun came slanting down and shining little spotlights on everything - a purple violet along the stream, a drop of dew on a maple leaf, bright green bracken fern standing up straight and tall in a small clearing. Small clouds of steam came rising out of thick mats of moss as they were warmed by the sun, but they were too faint for my phone to capture them. Sometimes on walks such as this I feel myself slowing down, getting almost sluggish, as if the accumulation of small impressions is beginning to weigh me down and I could almost just lie still in the dirt and soak it all in, happy. Except that would be very awkward if someone else came by. Plus I don't want to risk not waking up for a hundred years and finding everything has changed, and everyone I used to know has passed away. You can't be too careful when walking alone in the woods.

At one point I did have to indulge myself a little and sit very still, just listening. There was an oven bird nearby, which was obvious, but there was so much more going on as well, both near and far. I took a one minute video and brought it home to share with my wife, who knows about these things. She was able to identify:

the oven bird,
a black and white warbler, 
wood thrush,
two red-eyed vireos calling back and forth,
a brown creeper, 
and a great crested flycatcher.

If I had taken a five minute video while walking along no doubt she would have noticed other birds as well, but that would most likely be pushing it.