Donna Fleischer

Songliness

On this chill, grey streak afternoon, a triangle of robins appears near the rim of the French window where I sit, trying to write, end up seeing only them, their fresh concentration on a wild red clover field. Every eye tilted for movement, sound, vibration.

There had been only minutes of raindrops, the kind one can count. Not enough to raise any earthworms. Yet there they stand staring at the ground. Their lives depend upon getting enough calories to sleep somewhere through the cold night and wake up with the sun, begin again. Our human tasks, by comparison, with diamond drill complicate, frack, pollute, radiate the sucked dry honeycombs.

These days I write much the same way. Bore into white paper sheet, computer screen, topographic font, space bands, contour, hoping to bring to surface something necessary felt there.

open window,
with Mompou's song
morning birds join in