{"id":40994,"date":"2013-08-12T00:09:15","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T07:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=40994"},"modified":"2013-08-12T00:09:15","modified_gmt":"2013-08-12T07:09:15","slug":"the-birds-out-my-window","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/40994","title":{"rendered":"the birds out my window"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tWaking up each morning, I&#8217;m greeted by the wild whips, whoops, tweets, and chirps of various indigenous birds.<\/p>\n<p>Press &#8220;play&#8221; below for a minute preview of what I listen to. Some may call it a bother at 4 a.m., but\u00a0I call it pure bliss!<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9PL2rhTQ0ZQ\" height=\"315\" width=\"420\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>While listening, I thought you might enjoy reading this poem\u2014a favorite of mine.<\/p>\n<p>The people I love the best<br \/>\njump into work head first<br \/>\nWithout dallying in the shallows<br \/>\nand swim off with sure strokes<br \/>\nalmost out of sight.<\/p>\n<p>They seem to become natives of that element<br \/>\nthe black sleek heads of seals<br \/>\nbouncing like half-submerged balls.<\/p>\n<p>I love people who harness themselves,<br \/>\nan ox to a heavy cart,<br \/>\nwho pull like water buffalo,<br \/>\nwith massive patience,<br \/>\nwho strain in the mud and muck<br \/>\nto move things forward,<br \/>\nas to be done, again and again.<\/p>\n<p>I want to be with people<br \/>\nwho submerge in the task,<br \/>\nwho go into the fields to harvest<br \/>\nand work in a row and pass the bags along,<br \/>\nwho are not parlor generals and field deserters<br \/>\nbut move in a common rhythm<br \/>\nwhen the food must come in or the fire be put out.<\/p>\n<p>The work of the world is<br \/>\ncommon as mud.<\/p>\n<p>Botched, it smears the hands,<br \/>\ncrumbles to dust<br \/>\nBut the thing worth doing<br \/>\nwell done has a shape that<br \/>\nsatisfies, clean and evident.<br \/>\nGreek amphoras for wine or oil,<br \/>\nHopi vases that held corn,<br \/>\nare put in museums<br \/>\nbut you know they were<br \/>\nmade to be used.<br \/>\nThe pitcher cries for water<br \/>\nto carry and a person for<br \/>\nwork that is real.<\/p>\n<p>From <em>Circles on the Water<\/em> by Marge Piercy<br \/>\nCopyright 1982 by Marge Piercy<br \/>\nReprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.<\/p>\n<p>The bird you see when you listen to the audio is the Yellow Warbler, a regular visitor. We&#8217;ve had quite a few juveniles and older warbler-types flitting around the windows of the Design Studio lately.<\/p>\n<p>(Rascal has enjoyed watching them, with reverent purring. I do believe she would love to give them a love bite &#8230;\u00a0or two.)<\/p>\n<p>Their pretty yellow color is similar to my lovely little canary, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/23213\">Daffodil<\/a>, who passed away a couple of weeks ago.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Waking up each morning, I&#8217;m greeted by the wild whips, whoops, tweets, and chirps of various indigenous birds. Press &#8220;play&#8221; below for a minute preview of what I listen to. Some may call it a bother at 4 a.m., but\u00a0I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/40994\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/40994\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gift_for_gab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}