The Calls of the Wild

Haruki Murakami has his Wind-up Bird; I've got my Unwind Bird. I've even got my Unravel Bird, my Unwindable Bird, and my Long and Winding Road Bird.

I once spent the better part of a year writing haiku, as directed by a spiritual mentor. It was a good suggestion. It forced me to observe the world before me more acutely. And awareness is what It's all about, in't? (Years later, I found the little red notebook I carried around with me while commuting daily from Jersey to Random House in Manhattan. It was pretty cool. In the same book is an autograph of the author James Baldwin, spotted at a Hyatt Hotel lobby in Chicago. But I mentioned this in some previous blog. Oh. That's right. Doesn't matter. Blogging is all about The Eternal Now, baby. Incidentally, in case you missed it at the beginning of this paragraph of digression, the haiku link is perfectly splendid. Really.)

Well, blogging sometimes provides me with the same observational motivation.

I walk out at lunchtime.

I hear the purple finch. I know its lighthearted corkscrew of frivolous song.

In the evening, or sometimes the early morn, I discern the lyrical, slow repetitive lament of the robin, or a mourning dove.

Or the grackle's onomatopoeia.

These are sounds that give me pause. Why does most writing (including blogging) focus on the visual, rather than the olfactory or the aural? (Of course, exceptions abound, such as Marcel Proust, or Patrick Suskind [can you tell me how to add the umlaut over the u?], author of Perfume, which was made into a movie.)

I know perfume can get my tail wagging.

Sometimes flashing neon lights in Naughtyville get me all flustered.

But sounds?

The unmistakable crisp click of heels on a hardwood floor.

The languid reverie of a cardinal.

The "mermaids singing, each to each."

The crack of the bat.

An endless trickle from the aquarium's filter.

The closing of the elevator doors.

The mating-call whisper of the unhooked bra.

The cry of the titmouse (how could I resist?)

An unfettered laugh.

The tap on the keyboard.

The I/O switch.

(A tip of The Laughorist's beak to Naturesongs.com. I've taken poetic liberties in my descriptions, for fun. But this is a seriously great site.)

Sounds used are copyrighted to Naturesongs.com, 1999-2007.