from The First 100 Days of President Obama.
Day 60, 9-10AM, March 21, 2009, Mercey Hot Springs near Firebaugh [Fresno County, California]
Bird songs dot, rise, fall, loop and proliferate. First day of Spring.
The mating already well begun. Last night, three o’clock or so, out on
the cabin porch. No moon. An extraordinary bed of stars & planets
specked around the hemispheric black bed. On the edge (I am guessing)
of the northeast horizon, a jarringly layered red and white striped
planet is an aberration among its slowly flashing white partners.
An alert, an alarm, the flare of cosmic argument? Some ultimate message
bearing on the local?
A bird call, one echoed then layered, one
upon another. The pen moves gently and quick to accommodate the
chatter. The option of romance. The romance of options. The profile of
one bird atop the crown of a local tree. Calls echoed in the nocturnal
rhythms of the stars. One imagines, one wonders.
Mercey Hot Springs was named after the Frenchman who discovered the no doubt Indian medicine site. Merci (thank you) - was his real name. Much cleansed by the sulphurous waters, I thank him, too.
Stephen Vincent
http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
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