Alarm Clocks

My bucket-list friends and I demonstrated an unprecedented amount of spontaneity today. Ordinarily we plan our events in advance, but today, we put aside all that we were working on to go out to lunch. Spontaneously. We agreed we should do it more often.

Spring feels so good. Throngs (as much as throngs exist in Iowa) are out in the parks, ped. malls and grassy spaces, bikes are populating the racks on campus. It is as if everyone is emerging into the world again, we made it! We survived winter!

The best part of spring this year is the birds. After living in a high rise in Denver, I could watch birds fly by my apartment, but rarely, did I hear them. Now, they cheerfully wake me every morning, and I couldn't be happier. I always take note of bird calls when I travel. Birds always sound different, like they sing in a different language. When I was in Kenya, I even took a recording on the savanna, the chirping staccato sounded so familiar, but so foreign. The birds here sound dutiful and pleased. Sentinels of the sunrise, they start chirping around 5:30 and make a natural alarm clock. The following poem is one I've always appreciated and think about many mornings.


Poem in Thanks

Lord Whoever, thank you for this air
I'm about to in- and exhale, this hutch
in the woods, the wood for fire,
the light-both lamp and the natural stuff
of leaf-back, fern, and wing.
For the piano, the shovel
for ashes, the moth-gnawed
blankets, the stone-cold water
stone-cold: thank you.
Thank you, Lord, coming for
to carry me here -- where I'll gnash
it out, Lord, where I'll calm
and work, Lord, thank you
for the goddamn birds singing!

-Thomas Lux