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Day of the Meadowlark
One
of the great influences of my childhood was the song of the meadow
lark. Larks had become special, because my father had woven a myth
wherein the day of my birth, March 21st, and the first
day of spring, and the return of the meadow larks were intertwined.
In fact he put together a ritual we observed for many of my early
birthdays. We would go out behind our barn, and look out across
our cow pasture towards the Boise de Sioux to the east and listen.
Unfailingly, bourne on the chilling March breeze would come those
glorious, pure, soul-restoring notes of the first lark, 'See see
the tiddlywinks'
"I
hear him, Daddy. 'I would shout. I hear the meddlelark! I hear him!"
My
dad was a great whistler, and he would immediately answer the lark's
call with his own almost perfect reply. Then the lark would answer;
then my dad, then other larks would chime in from other quarters
of the pasture and voila, Spring would have arrived!
Springs
really seemed special then, augmented by my boyhood enthusiasm and
love for all things natural. But the returning spring birds held
an almost holy mysteriousness to my young, developing soul. There
was a mingling of spirits taking place: hope, and promise and renewal
and restoration mingled themselves with pure joy and jubilation
that winter, that grey deathly thing was dying.
The
larks always struck the first chord for me, even though other avian
voices were often audible on March 21st as well. Kildeers
and red-winged blackbirds would soon or simultaneously be heard
from the east side of the red Pinkney barn on those sacred and blessed
mornings. And at night, flock after flock of geese voiced, their
wild cries adding the miracle of night migration to the awe filled-imagination
of at least one young “ brother of the old wild goose”
fully tuned to their wild tumult in the night.
It
was the larks that inspired my first venture into poetry. I think
I can even still remember something of how that poem went:
Jubilant
songster, bird of spring
Singing
perched or on the wing,
Making
all the pastures ring
Oh
welcome home.
How
I joy to hear your voice;
Making
all the fields rejoice
Hearing
you is all my choice
Pour
out your song.
Over
many springs since those early days I observed the ritual of listening
for the lark.But it was about 1988 when I first experienced disappointment
when the larks failed to show up on time. Sadly, that disappointment
has been growing steadily for the simple reason that Rachel Carson’s
prophecy of the 'silent spring' seems to be coming true at least
for the meadow larks of the Red River Valley of the North
This
year’s spring journey down to Bigstone Lake in South Dakota
to open our lake cabin turned up not a single meadow lark. I used
to see hundreds on such trips even back to the mid-nineties.
I
hope it is just the absence of the little farms with their cow pastures
that has become the cause for this dark omen; but I fear intensive
areal spraying and wall to wall intensive farming of every available
square inch of farmland is the real culprit.
The
good old farmers, many going out of business in my boyhood 50's,
often left all sorts of fence-lines and marginal land available
for wildlife. Now there is almost none in the valley, nor are there
larks--or pheasants for that matter.
Somehow
the redwing blackbirds still thrive, but field sparrows, upland
plovers, bobolinks and even killdeers seem to be on the way out.
I
pray God will give them sanctuary somewhere, but what a huge loss
it is to the valley, that the few farm boys still growing up out
there on the huge expanses now passing as farms, will not be able
to stand outside their barns on the first day of Spring and be awed
and inpired with the purest thing in all of North Dakota nature:
the song of the meadow lark.
That
song was all I needed to assure me that 'God was in His Heaven and
all was right with the world.'
Now
the kids have rap music. God, help us.
Sept. 13th 2006
Gene Pinkney
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