Sunday Morning

Every Sunday, over coffee and the newspaper, I am asked, either by myself or others, what will you do today?  I hate that question, especially on Sunday, where the clash between worship and work often turns into soggy indecision, and the hours tick by, removing choice by nightfall.

Today was an exception.  Although breakfast presented the usual question, the answer was at the hummingbird feeder, a blurry yellow flit, twice as big as a hummer.  I found my glasses and binoculars and hoped for a second coming.  The bird did revisit the feeder, and I was able to pull out the bird book and identify that it was a female Townsend’s warbler who had found the fountain of sweetness in the one drinking station that didn’t have the yellow grating over it, sized only for hummingbirds and not their bigger-beaked cousins.

I am a lazy birder, so having a yellow headed warbler visit my home in the winter, posing several times for a full identification from the dining table to occur, met all my needs for a religious experience.  After that, the day felt free and fanciful.  Meaning had been accomplished before 9:00 AM and I could rightfully loaf the rest of the day.  I found the perfect combination of exercise, chores, and relaxation to make it a Good Sunday.  The fact that dinner was supplied by excellent leftovers, made it even better.

Wearing down the hours of the day, I tuned into Terry Tempest Williams on the radio, who spoke wisdom as usual. She sounded a warning about our loss of knowledge of the natural world, which makes the actual biological losses so much harder to appreciate.  She also talked about our readiness to speak our opinions, rather than share our knowledge as part of the reason we continue to politically  tear ourselves apart.

To spread the word, we passed on the sighting of the Townsend’s warbler to our next door neighbor, and admired the snowdrops blooming in a friend’s yard.

She says, “I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;”
    -from Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens