pull up a chair

if only i had a periscope. i would take you right into the nursery, right into the apparently messy little chamber where mama and the babies keep up their ruckus all through the day, and into the night.
oh, dear, it is a sound so sweet, a chorus of baby peeps, lullabies perhaps, ’tis music to my flighted soul.
it is soft, just slightly louder than leaves rustling in the wind, more like mice playing with mice-like chopsticks. just the barest rubbing together of air and vocal cords. bird breath, with a message.
and now that the sci-fi cicada song is no longer, is barely, i am all ears taking in the sounds we hadn’t heard.
funny, i was busy missing the cicada chorus, that otherworldly whirring that spoke to me, it did, when i stepped out the front door and heard the barest brush of peeps.
i looked up. i cocked my ear. sure enough, the baby birds, the ones whose every move–at least all those on this side of the hole–i’ve kept close eye on, from here in the little room where i birth words.
back in february, it seems, i watched mama and papa sparrow darting here and there, trying out the hole and several others, trying to find just the finest place in which to upholster their obstetrical ambitions.
they must have liked the way it nestled in to the corner of the house. a safe cove, indeed. not like other nests i have watched empty one-by-one, because poor mama robin did not have the sense to move her babies out of striking distance of some harsh and hungry critter who did them in, one sadistic heartbreak at a time.
once the hole was theirs, once the “under contract” sign was posted, i watched them flitting in and out, for weeks and weeks, with straw and grass and cellophane strips, for heaven’s sake. and fluff, must be a whole pillow’s stuff of fluff in there. somehow.
you don’t know how much i wish i had a periscope. as is, i look like mrs. cratchett, up there on tippy-toes atop my ladder that isn’t tall enough, trying to get a teeny tiny peek inside what shall be called the peep hole, now that it’s alive and animated and very much a place of non-stop peeping, except of course when it’s naptime, which must come right after story hour, and milk-and-worm time.
yet again, i leap too quickly.
remember how one fertile day in may, right out my window, in the boughs of the serviceberry and the rhododendron (both lovely spots for mating, don’t you think), i watched, could not help but notice, as mama and papa did their baby-making all day long, right before my eyes, so long i wanted to go lift the weary mama, set her up in comfy armchair, give her icepack for her head, or other parts, as well?
it appears, from the peep of things, the deed was duly done, and we’ve a whole brood out there, just above the door, where one wall meets another, where it’s gotten rather messy, but i don’t mind, because i too have been a new mother, have been overwhelmed, have wondered how in the world i would ever get through the summer when i could barely manage to get through a day, stuck in my pajamas.
so i cut her slack. i sweep away the bits she drops flitting in and out with all those big cicadas dangling from her beak. no wonder those baby birds are making such a fuss. they, like all the other baby birds of the summer of ‘007, are spoiled little feathered things. they’ve all been richly fed on whole cicadas. and they are, most likely, expecting a whole life long of such unencumbered feasting.
well, baby birds, that party’s almost over. so, hush your crying, it’s back to worms, and simple spiders.
any day now, i am hoping, flying lessons will begin. then, i think, i will haul out my lawn chair and a lemonade. i will set up shop, and spend the days marveling at the miracles that chose to peep above the very door where i go in and out.
they remind me, with every blessed peep, that sometimes you must turn up your ears, to grasp the trumpet glory of all creation. sometimes the finest trumpet song comes on notes as soft as grass bending in the breeze.
it just might be the sound of God whispering.

is anyone else being serenaded by the baby birds? what other gentle notes lull you into holy contemplation? anyone else already miss the cicada whirring? isn’t it uncanny the way one joy fades away and another comes rushing in?

and by the way, the chair committee on all things technologic is attempting to record the bird peeps so you too can swoon along. only problem is the recorder has yet to be unearthed up there in the room that looks like kansas during twister season. a cyclone seems to have blown in and set all sorts of things aflying. stay tuned for peeps.