My radio alarm goes off every week day morning at 6:30 a.m. I usually lie in bed for another half hour, listening to National Public Radio tell me the news, weather and traffic. They have such soothing voices on NPR, even the worst news or the most snarled traffic doesn't sound too threatening.
I keep the radio turned low; I can also hear the birds in the yard, excited about the food in the bird feeder.
This past week, every morning at 6:50, Garrison Keillor was on the radio for a brief monologue he calls The Writer's Almanac. He talks about a writer or two, usually on the writer's birthday. Then he reads a favorite poem.
I just love it. What a great way to start the day - soft voices, bird song and poetry.
Check out the associated web site: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2007/02/05/#thursday
I heard him read the following on Thursday as I lay in bed listening to the birds in my yard:
Why I Need the Birds
When I hear them call
in the morning, before
I am quite awake,
my bed is already traveling
the daily rainbow,
the arc toward evening;
and the birds, leading
their own discreet lives
of hunger and watchfulness,
are with me all the way,
always a little ahead of me
in the long-practiced manner
of unobtrusive guides.
By the time I arrive at evening,
they have just settled down to rest;
already invisible, they are turning
into the dreamwork of trees;
and all of us together —
myself and the purple finches,
the rusty blackbirds,
the ruby cardinals,
and the white-throated sparrows
with their liquid voices —
ride the dark curve of the earth
toward daylight, which they announce
from their high lookouts
before dawn has quite broken for me.
by Lisel Mueller
