Morning Song

When I awake this morning, awareness filtering into unconsciousness like cream into black coffee, my eyes seek the red light orientation of my clock. 8:30, the squared numbers announce. For a minute I'm confused. 

Usually the only 8:30 I see is at bedtime when I'm willing the clock to hold still while I try to find my way into eight hours of sleep that is now impossible before the alarm goes off at 4:00.

This is a different 8:30. I hear the hallelujah chorus of robins calling light into the darkness, both for this day and for the season. It's morning. It's spring. I've slept for something like ten hours. The house and my spirit are both quiet. It's a school day, but two previous nights of broken, restless and insufficient sleep were enough for this to be declared a sick day. Except that I feel more well, more whole, more myself, than I have in a week. Than I have in months.

The storm of grief seems to have passed. One last flurry of frozen despair before winter gave way to spring.

I go about my usual morning routine with no sense of urgency, which makes it even more delicious and satisfying. Journal, meditate, read. Toby's sleeping quietly unaware outside. Emma's purrs set up a soft vibration on my lap. My hands enjoy the warm water feel of her fur.

 Mary Oliver has been a part of my mornings for months now. I can't quite say how it happened, but her poems have become Voice of God. They offer comfort, inspiration, and encouragement in specific, no-accidents language that imbues my days like holy incense. This morning I open a new book and this is the poem that greets me:

North Country

by Mary Oliver

In the north country now it is spring and there

is a certain celebration. The thrush

has come home. He is shy and likes the 

evening best, also the hour just before 

morning; in that blue and gritty light he

climbs to his branch, or smoothly

sails there. It is okay to know only

one song if it is this one. Hear it

rise and fall; the very elements of your soul

shiver nicely. What would spring be

without it? Mostly frogs. But don't worry, he

arrives, year after year, humble and obedient

and gorgeous. You listen and you know

you could live a better life than you do, be

softer, kinder. And maybe this year you will

be able to do it. Hear how his voice

rises and falls. There is no way to be

sufficiently grateful for the gifts we are 

given, no way to speak the Lord's name

often enough, though we do try, and

especially now, as that dappled breast

breathes in the pines and heaven's

windows in the north country, now spring has come, 

are opened wide.

Thank you, Mary for your words of hope and affirmation. Thank you, robins, for your song of spring. Thank you, morning, for always arriving, no matter how long or broken the night.

photo from Flickr