The West Wind

 It's Tuesday mid-afternoon and I am just sitting down after a very challenging week.  The whole week has not been challenging, just most of it.  Over the past weekend, as now, I have felt depleted.

On Sunday, I was driving in my car and listening to the NYT The Daily interview podcast.  The interviewee was Anthony Hopkins, of movie star fame and now 87 years old.  If he is as he sounded in his interview, he seems to be a completely lovely man.  He, apparently, continues to act and keeps a full schedule.  When asked, by the interviewer, what he does when he is not working he replied, "Oh I don't know, read, play the piano."  At the end of the interview, he was asked to read this poem.  He went to fetch the book and he read so beautifully.  It might be considered a masculine poem, but I don't care.  Beauty is beauty and we all need beauty in our lives.  And, the other thing about this poem, it's an honest poem.  We all need honesty in our lives, too. 

There is a lot about birds, bird song, the land, flowers and, as always, so much more, especially the wind.  I loved the poem and loved hearing Anthony Hopkins read it.  I think it fits well on this blog and, even if it doesn't, it fits well in my heart.  Though unrelated to my current conundrum, the words will give me courage to say words of my own to end a thirty plus year friendship.    

Everything below was copied from Your Daily Poem.  Thank you to Your Daily Poem.com.

The West Wind by John Masefield Next

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills. And April's in the west wind, and daffodils. It's a fine land, the west land, for hearts as tired as mine, Apple orchards blossom there, and the air's like wine. There is cool green grass there, where men may lie at rest, And the thrushes are in song there, fluting from the nest. "Will ye not come home, brother? ye have been long away, It's April, and blossom time, and white is the may; And bright is the sun, brother, and warm is the rain,-- Will ye not come home, brother, home to us again? "The young corn is green, brother, where the rabbits run. It's blue sky, and white clouds, and warm rain and sun. It's song to a man's soul, brother, fire to a man's brain, To hear the wild bees and see the merry spring again. "Larks are singing in the west, brother, above the green wheat, So will ye not come home, brother, and rest your tired feet? I've a balm for bruised hearts, brother, sleep for aching eyes," Says the warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries. It's the white road westwards is the road I must tread To the green grass, the cool grass, and rest for heart and head, To the violets, and the warm hearts, and the thrushes' song, In the fine land, the west land, the land where I belong. This poem is in the public domain.   John Masefield (1878-1967) was an English poet, author, and playwright. Both his parents died while he was a child, and at the age of thirteen, annoyed with John's "addiction" to reading, the aunt in charge of caring for him sent him off to train for a life as a sailor. Although his experiences at sea provided much material for the stories and poems he would later write, John soon tired of that harsh life and, on a voyage to New York, he jumped ship. For two years, he worked at odd jobs in that city, using his free time for reading and writing. He eventually returned to England, married, had two children, and established himself as a significant literary talent. As his stature as a writer continued to grow, John became an internationally successful lecturer and was appointed as England's poet laureate, a position he held for nearly forty years. He actively wrote and published until he was 88 years old. John Masefield wrote the poem "The West Wind" in or before 1902, the year it was published in his first collection of verse, Salt-Water Ballads.  Buy on AmazonBuy on AmazonBuy on AmazonBuy on Amazon

Writing leads to other writing

It's October 1st and we are enjoying a wonderful prolonged summer. Only I know that it's really not summer.  I'm a four seasons person—would not change that for anything—so when the warm, sunny weather leaves us I will move on to real autumn.  Still, the fine weather is lovely and should be enjoyed.

I was recently walking around the neighborhood and reflecting on how I had actually spent my summer.  It would be easy for me to say that I didn't do much.  But that wouldn't be exactly correct.

When I returned from my Finland and Norway trip at the beginning of June, I spent the next four weeks writing about it on this blog.  It was a great trip and writing about it, episode by episode, was such an enjoyable activity for me.  Then writing about F/N, lead to writing about our brief and distant sighting of a Terek Sandpiper for 10,000 Birds titled:  There's a Shorebird on the Roof.

The July ABA Magazine article titled Lost on the Frontier by Brad Meiklejohn led me to write:  Missing the Gray-headed Chickadee.

Then I listened to Nate Swick's prologue on the ABA podcast about the new documentary film by Owen and Quentin Rieser titled Listers and I was inspired to write:  To list or not to list.  I'm waiting for Quentin Reiser's book to arrive in the mail today.

I enjoyed remembering my experience in the Andaman Islands in March of 2023 and contributed to a collaborative post titled Our 6 Rarest Birds Seen So Far.  My bird is the Ruddy Kingfisher.

Finally, having nothing to do with birding, I finished reading Nightingales:  The Extraordinary Upbringing of and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale by Gillian Gill, published in 2014.  I'm a slow reader so it took me a while to finish.  It will be the best book I read in 2025 and I felt compelled to attempt to write a review.  This is a review of the sort that I do not feel qualified to write, but it turned out okay, I think.  But then I was reading a 10,000 Birds blog post and I was reminded that I had left something important (to me anyway) out of my review.  So I wrote:  Florence Nightingale and her Little Owl.

I have other writing ideas for the 10,000 Birds blog.  It is a fun blog.  It's an international site, has a very engaged editor who is also a birder, and I encourage others to look it up and subscribe.  You will see photos of birds you have no hope to see in real life, read of very different birding experiences, read about birding guides and lodges from all around the world, and perhaps be inspired to make a contribution of your own.  After all, none of us can watch, listen or read about politics all day.  Now is not a good time to put our heads in the sand (unfortunately, I have never been able to put my head in the sand, despite having examples all around me of how to do it), but even still it's important to have a diversion.

So this summer I wrote.  You could argue that this also means that, true enough, I didn't do much.  But this is not true.  Writing about birds has helped me find the strength to pay attention to our Democracy and not put my head in the sand.  I can't write if I have my head in the sand.  

As the new posts I write come out, I'll also publish them here. 

  Yes, someone is in there.  Enlarge to see.