Riding the trees / One Good Thing

Where a Red-winged Blackbird sings

Hi readers: Consider this a bonus edition of “One Good Thing,” which appears in your email box each week.

Yesterday as I was walking through the hills, a stiff breeze came up and a Red-winged Blackbird took flight. I followed the bird as it perched in a nearby tree, where it proceeded to ride in the deeply swaying branches for several seconds.

I love the sight (and sound) of the Red-winged Blackbirds, which during their springtime migration provide such a vibrant call to warmth.

[Click above to watch the bird “riding” in the branches … (12 seconds)]

Watching the bird, I immediately thought of one of my favorite poems, “Birches,” by Robert Frost (text below). I first encountered this poem almost 20 years ago, and it led to an almost amazing synchronicity which played a starring role in an unfolding series of events that changed my life.

And so …

… one fine morning, almost 20 years ago, I heard the poem “Birches” read by Garrison Keillor on Writers Almanac (a wonderful poetry feature that was broadcast on many NPR stations, well before Garrison Keillor was cancelled and NPR turned to mush).

Later that same day, I encountered Bruno — a local man who, like me, had been raised on a dairy farm). The way I remember the episode, Bruno — out of nowhere — spontaneously reminisced about riding in the trees when he was a boy.

Even though he had never heard of the poem, I realized that HE was the boy in “Birches.”

I already liked Bruno — but I think that was the moment when I knew that I was in BIG TROUBLE and that he and I would be together.

And I thought of the wonderful line from the poem:

“Earth’s the right place for love:

I don’t know where it's likely to go better.”

Yesterday, the bird brought it all back. All of it.

And I’m happy to report that during this time-traveling moment of mine … I felt like I was riding in the trees.

“One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.”

[To hear the Red-winged Blackbird’s siren song to Spring, take advantage of Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology recording:]

CLICK HERE!

And now … enjoy a symphony of swishing birches.

“Birches”

By Robert Frost (1969)

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows—

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father's trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It’s when I’m weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig’s having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:

I don’t know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Love,

Amy

**** Thank you for subscribing and helping to support my work. Every day I’m inspired to look for at least ONE “good thing” to share.