My party invitation

I stopped by the front desk and the maitre d’ showed me to my table. “Right this way, Sir.” The party was in full session. Oh, in reality I was just taking a short break from work and had stepped out onto our front porch to sit on a rocker, but when I closed my eyes the party was in full session.

There was a cacophony of chirping and tweeting. A “cheep” here, a slow “twirp, twirp” there. Oh, my knowledge of birds leaves a lot to be desired, but there were Robins and Baltimore Orioles, and finches and sparrows. I even saw a Cardinal, with its reddish body and bill and black face.

The birds were all crying out to be heard over the others. I sat back on the bench and let the chirping take over me. There was a rhythm and a tone to the singing all its own. It was the strangest and loveliest sound I’ve heard in a while.

No, droning on-and-on like in the Zoom meeting I had sat in on earlier in the day. No humming of the refrigerator or the fan on my laptop. No jackhammering construction a few streets up like I heard two days earlier when I went to get my coffee. Just the birds.

I thought for a second that I had entered a bird sanctuary. If not that, then a party with hundreds of guests all swooping in and out of the front yard. Oh, the world tried to interrupt and pull me out of my quiet. The beep-beep of a work truck backing up and a plane flying overhead broke the silence, but the birds still sung their song.

Oh, I crashed the party alright, but what a great party to attend.

A small sample of the Sounds of Spring.