This week, I was inspired to try something a little different on Dandelion Seeds. If you enjoyed this new style of illustrated essay and would like to support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber 💌
Sometimes I wonder what's more clamorous. What's more noisy. The world outside. Or the spaces inside me. Both get so dark. So dense. So loud. So impenetrable. A gravity so strong not even light can escape it. Not even light is safe from it. It's good to be reminded that somethig as simple as a song is all it takes to cut through.
I spend a lot of time here in a concrete Irish city listening out for birdsong. It’s my only connection with beloved nature. Behind my house are a few scraggly old apple trees that still toss some fruit over the wall for me in the fall. The birds love these scrubby trees and old heaps of trash and sticks underneath. It’s their haven in spring. This rare urban habitat is doomed as developers have bought that land and intend to scrape it any day now. Meanwhile I mark my days with the morning and evening bookends of birdsong, blackbirds being the loudest and most prolific song makers. I have read that they, unlike many birds, continue to create new songs their whole lives, well into old age. This is something I have been trying to turn into a poem lately, but it seems instead I am just taking it into my aging life instead, like a vitamin for my creativity. Vitamin Bird. Give me a dose or two every day so I can stay in touch with what it is to be alive and full of song.
Sometimes I wonder what's more clamorous. What's more noisy. The world outside. Or the spaces inside me. Both get so dark. So dense. So loud. So impenetrable. A gravity so strong not even light can escape it. Not even light is safe from it. It's good to be reminded that somethig as simple as a song is all it takes to cut through.
I spend a lot of time here in a concrete Irish city listening out for birdsong. It’s my only connection with beloved nature. Behind my house are a few scraggly old apple trees that still toss some fruit over the wall for me in the fall. The birds love these scrubby trees and old heaps of trash and sticks underneath. It’s their haven in spring. This rare urban habitat is doomed as developers have bought that land and intend to scrape it any day now. Meanwhile I mark my days with the morning and evening bookends of birdsong, blackbirds being the loudest and most prolific song makers. I have read that they, unlike many birds, continue to create new songs their whole lives, well into old age. This is something I have been trying to turn into a poem lately, but it seems instead I am just taking it into my aging life instead, like a vitamin for my creativity. Vitamin Bird. Give me a dose or two every day so I can stay in touch with what it is to be alive and full of song.