The Music of What Happens

Martha was using a bookmark the other day that I had never noticed before.

Birds are plentiful in Atlantic Beach – we have gone on bird walks at Fort Macon in past years with Park Superintendent Randy Newman – and we have learned to identify some of them.  Now that Spring is just around the corner, the air is alive with their songs.  That mockingbird is still here with his magical mimicking music; I often see him along the walkway to the dune-top deck early in the morning perched on the top-most branch of a red cedar.  Some birds are nesting in the shrubs directly below our balcony, too, and they often swoop up to stand near the railing.  Their droppings were becoming a nuisance, so Martha taped a piece of aluminum foil there to deter them, which has been mostly successful.  But sometimes one will land defiantly on the center of the foil and strut back and forth, as this mourning dove did earlier today.

They love to perch on the roof ridges of the nearby houses, too, sometimes congregating in large numbers, and then moving in unison to another roof.  They are so close together that it is amazing they do not collide.  But I suppose they might think the same thing about a runner in a marathon, packed in with thousands of other runners. 

Sometimes I go out on the balcony with my coffee in the morning and simply watch them at play.  It is mating season and they do seem to be at play; sometimes a pair can be seen chasing one another like children playing a game of tag.  All of this reminds me of a poem by Seamus Heaney that I came upon the other day.

There are the mud-flowers of dialect
And the immortelles of perfect pitch
And that moment when the bird sings very close
To the music of what happens.

That’s what the legendary hero Fionn mac Cumhaill is said to have replied when he was asked what was the best music of all:  “The music of what happens.”

We will be leaving Atlantic Beach in a week or two, and so we are trying to savor every moment, walking on the beach nearly every day, running, trying to keep that green bough in our heart, and listening to that best music of all, the music of what happens.  This morning was overcast, but when I went out onto the deck I could see a bright band of gauzy pink all along the horizon on the east. 

We will feel better about traveling because as of yesterday morning we received our second Covid vaccine.  And it is good to know that we are among the increasing number of Americans that have now been vaccinated, over 100 million as of yesterday, 13% of the population.  It is possible that we might be returning to a summer of backyard cookouts with friends and families by the Fourth of July, as our President talked about in his speech on Thursday night.  That would be very welcome music to our ears!