Birdsong

I wake up to the song of blackbirds, at least of one I know who sings from dawn till sunrise. He’s black as ink and opens his beak so wide, the yellow disappears. He perches on the top of the tallest cypress tree, the second one of many lining the path leading away from the park gate. His body, small and light, softly sways to the rhythm of his song, its lightness moved by the force of his passion. As the minutes pass and others shyly join him, they sound like back-up singers, mere echoes of his lead.

If ever I dare to bid him good morning, stopping by the tree, he pauses mid-song, looking away, and waits for me to leave. He looks like he could wait for hours, suspended like a black caesura, but the resonance of his song (or is it the beating of his tiny heart?) sways the twig he stands on, and moved by the memory of his own music he stretches his beak once more and breaks into song.

As I stand beneath him, feeling ground-bound and graceless, gladdened by his song, I imagine the strains of notes and melodies; how they must gather in his tiny chest, as he waits, poised and fervent,  strings of fairy lights of tinkling notes lighting the dawn with their invisible colours as he unfurls them into the air.

I think of something my husband said the other day: “birds can see more colours than other animals, you know, I like to think that’s why they sing.”

As I walked away from the blackbird this morning, I thought of his song, of the blackness of his feathers that gives the lie to colour, and I wished that I could see the world through his eyes; how maybe then, even if just for a short while, my heart too might pulse with song.