Morning has Broken

Who’s to know what makes a bird wake up and decide to change its song?
Eliot Pattison

I am an early riser. While working, I usually woke around five. Even though retired for just over a year it’s difficult to break that habit.

However, several days this week, I’ve woken even earlier, at around four. There is not a lot of positive in that you might say, and I’d usually agree, except on one morning this week I woke at four to birdsong. Or, should I more accurately write, the song of a single bird.

I am no ornithologist so cannot identify the bird from the song it sang. Or why it alone sang so early in the morning. Maybe like me, he or she just couldn’t sleep.

It was only for some moments that I lay in the otherwise silence of the dark bedroom. Listening to the singing of that single bird. It seemed that it and I might be the only two creatures alive. The tune it offered was melodious and yet melancholy. Did it sing of lost love, thoughts of gone summers, or past youth?

After some minutes, the bird fell silent, and no encore was forthcoming. Having sung its song, it again found rest leaving me to the silence of the dark and contemplation of my thoughts.

Yet, for those minutes, all felt very right with the world …