Bird of Parody

I haven’t had my First Robin Sighting yet in 2019. Any day now, I hope to have that thrilling little heart jump at spotting one of those familiar feathered harbingers of Spring.

While I have been thinking robins, I recalled a poem I used to read to my children from a book of nursery rhymes. On a page near the back of the tattered yellow book, I’d read in a shivery, blustery tone:

The north wind doth blow,

And we shall have snow,

And what will the robin do then?

Poor thing!

He’ll sit in a barn,

To keep himself warm,

And hide his head under his wing,

Poor thing!

The little people I was reading to would look at the poor robin huddling on the barn beam while the wind whipped the snow past the window in the picture, and instinctively snuggle closer to me.

That’s not the robin I’m waiting for.

With apologies to Mother Goose, here’s my poem:

The south wind doth bring

Happy promise of Spring,

And what will sweet robin do then?

Blest thing!

She’ll treble at dawn,

Love-dance on the lawn,

And hide her eggs under her wing,

Blest thing!

This Post’s Quotables:

It seems a shame to be posting such inconsequential things as bird-sightings when we’ve just spent a weekend seeing Jesus. We went to Pennsylvania and took in the REACH conference (put on by Faith Builders) on Thursday and Friday, and then on Saturday we saw the Sight & Sound show about the life of Christ, which is simply called "Jesus". I hope to do a blog post about my impressions of these events in the future, but for now I will share a few quotes I heard in some REACH sessions:

“We have to realize how devastating focusing on ourselves really is.” – David Yoder

“Being disciplined is foundational for righteous living like Jesus.” – Irene Yoder

“Who is the light of the world? (We are) What do you do with light? (Take it to the darkness)” – Rick Rhodes

“What we pray for, we get, and what we pray for, gets us.” – Allen Roth

This Post’s Childhood Memory:

This time of year, when I see the little run-off streams that form beside melting snowbanks, I remember the delight of playing in such “rivers” of Spring when I was a young girl. My sibs and I would get dropped off at the end of our long lane after school and we’d meander in to the house, getting waylaid by the beckoning ribbons of water rushing along the edges of the gravel. Other times it was such fun to extend the playing time into construction and maintenance of the little streams. We’d clear away winter debris – dead leaves and stalks of dried weeds – from the collection spots clogging the waterways and dig little trenches with a short piece of a stout twig as our backhoe for diverting and funneling in the river system. Most fun of all was to sail little boats on the Snowmelt River. A boat could be a piece of paper littered along the lane, an old pine cone frayed from having been driven over too many times, a large piece of stray straw from the nearby grain field or a wood chip that had fallen off the pickup when we hauled in slab wood to the basement. Sometimes we’d get two or more boats of similar size and weight and seaworthiness and race them on the stream. At such events, my youngest brother’s excitement had a unique feature. He’d stand with his arms stretched out rather stiffly at his sides and flutter his fingers as he stood gleefully mesmerized. I don't think I ever did this particular routine outwardly, but I’m sure my inner excitement mirrored his.

PS. I wrote most of this post on our way home from PA. Half an hour after we returned home, I looked out on the lawn and saw not one, but THREE robins. First Robin Sighting 2019 - yay!

What Spring Sightings give you a little heart-jump of thrill?