Читать книгу The Audible and the Evident - Julie Hanson - Страница 15

Improvisation

or

The Bluebird of Happiness

A bluebird came to a post of the garden fence time and again last summer and, in doing so, brought disproportionate joy. It wasn’t a fencepost proper; it was one of seventeen six-foot poles rigged vertically as an extension to the chain-link fence to support a second, less substantial, tier. The bluebird preferred to perch on the pole mounted at a particular corner and reaching a greater height than the rest. Should that post become occupied by a second, less-frequently-visiting bluebird, the next-best option was apparently the pole mounted on the corner directly east of it, which had tilted a bit. I know there must be something sold at Lowe’s which might lend itself better to the beauty of the whole while at the same time making the fence appear higher to deer, but we already had a few of these poles lying around in the attic of the garage and so put them to use and bought the few more that were needed. It has taken all these years for the bluebirds to land on them. But then happiness is often discovered close by, even if on any given day it might not register as such.

It’s January now, and the temperatures in Iowa are about what you’d expect. Still, there’s reason to go out. Just yesterday, having emptied the compost bucket into one of the bins behind the garden and having made my way back up the hill to the house, I stood near the side door, staring blankly at the aluminum siding, listening. What I heard was a simple choral accompaniment to the squeak of the gas meter attached to the side of the house. I don’t know why the gas meter squeaks this way—the original one never did—but this replacement unit chirps at regular three-second intervals. I never spotted the bird and so can’t name the species, but that note was deliberate, woven in, repeated.