I’ve been trying to write this post about feathers for weeks now, but my brain seems reluctant to string words together.
The world news makes almost everything else seem feather-light and trivial.
But sometimes, I can’t sustain the wide-eyed, wide-angle focus on the state of things. I just have to zoom in on something small and close by … something that has a pattern and seems to make sense of the world for a moment or two.
“Hope” is the the thing with feathers ” by Emily Dickinson is the first thing to float into my mind when thinking of feathers.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –That perches in the soul –And sings the tune without the words –And never stops – at all –And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –And sore must be the storm –That could abash the little BirdThat kept so many warm –I’ve heard it in the chillest land –And on the strangest Sea –Yet – never – in Extremity,It asked a crumb – of me.
The line that stands out to me the most in this beautiful poem at the current time of reading is “And sings the tune without the words -”
I often wish we could just stop and listen to the wordless tune that nature belts out every day, whether we’re paying attention or not.
Lately, it seems as if words, used so rarely as a means of getting to real understanding, are only getting us into more trouble.
It gets hard to hear the “thing with feathers” amid the Gale of unfiltered information thundering around us.
To avoid adding too many more of my own words to the storm, here are a few feathers to consider in quietness.
Below is a Sooty Grouse tail feather that I found, inexplicably, in our 100% grouse-free urban neighbourhood.
I was actually on the point of abandoning this blog post altogether when I had a visit from Sparky, “the thing with feathers” personified. He gave me a fizzy starling pep talk.
A new print — “Hope is the thing.
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