Scott Whitby, 2023
Every Summer for the last six years, I'd leave my window open and if I'd awaken early, I'd hear a Summer Tanager sing a story. I always awakened early...or he awakened me.
The first time I heard him I knew he was not ordinary. In the mornings and summers since, I knew him so well that I could predict his next note, his next phrase. I knew his story. I could sing along.
He sang uninhibited. Loud...with clear beautiful timbre. I imagined his neck was strained far and his mouth painfully open wide to make sure I listen.
He insisted he was heard, stern and persistent as a parent pointing at and telling a child. 'It's morning. The sun's coming up. Better get up.' He was the commander and he was artistic.
He demanded confirmation, 'do you hear me?'. Then, as if disgusted, he'd mumble to himself before singing his song again. It sounded like 'these kids' or 'get real'.
He was the first bird awake and I liked him for that. And always from the same perch. Not from the tallest tree but one from where he was best heard and seen. He was confident and he knew he had a good song, a good story.
The other birds gave him the courtesy of introducing the morning. When he finished, he'd let them have their say. He never interrupted them once it was their turn. They have beautiful stories too.
But I haven't heard him this year. I thought I did this morning but he sang from a different tree. I was sad when I realized it was the same story but a different bird in a different tree.
This bird in the wrong tree, probably his son rather than a rival, sings now. He is trying to tell the same story. But this new bird is no story teller. He's reluctant, unpracticed. He is inartistic and uncertain.
Some birds sing songs just to sound pretty. I like those birds but I like the ones with stories better. This new bird knows the story but is not good at singing it.
Maybe he just needs his own song. One he believes. His daddy's song is not his and maybe the birds and I need a new story, a new song that is his.
Even if that's so, I miss that other bird, the one I mourn. I'll always remember his story and how it goes. I hope he thought we need a new story and he sent this other bird.
That's what I hope.
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