birds

God gave a loaf to every bird, But just a crumb to me.

Our little kinsmen after rain In plenty may be seen, A pink and pulpy multitude The tepid ground upon; A needless life it seemed to me Until a little bird As to a hospitality Advanced and breakfasted.

I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.

We must be careful what we say. No bird resumes its egg.

. . . every tree near our house had a name of its own and a special identity. This was the beginning of my love for natural things, for earth and sky, for roads and fields and woods, for trees and grass and flowers; a love which has been second only to my sense of enduring kinship with birds and animals, and all inarticulate creatures.

Nothing living should ever be treated with contempt. Whatever it is that lives, a man, a tree, or a bird, should be touched gently, because the time is short. Civilization is another word for respect for life.

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west.

Avoid the reeking herd, Shun the polluted flock, Live like that stoic bird The eagle of the rock.

LEAVE-TAKING Leave-taking is not birds gathered for one last hymn to summer on thin branches of an empty tree, nor grass, sodden and bent beneath winter's first rain-heavy snow. Leave-taking is not the sun reluctant to smile in a lowering sky, nor the moon taking leave of the stars at dawn one by one. Leave-taking is not the wind suddenly hushed in the rocking cradle of trees, nor the waves stunned and dazed, staring glassy-eyed after the parting storm. Leave-taking is not birds, grass, sun, moon, wind or waves; for these will all come again. Will you?

IN AUTUMN, I write of days smoldering like embers to ash, grass, stiff, green-weary, waiting for somnolent winter, everywhere, gathered birds stuck in spindly branches and gardens done with giving. . . of air, over-ripe, indolent, like the last great cluster of grapes on the vine, which winds its way across the wall, tendrils turned to wood.