To a mockingbird in Daydreaming on the Porch

“Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art…“

“To a Skylark”
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

It has been a lovely, lazy, warm and sunny Indian summer day, one might say, here in the historic district of Charleston. Relaxed and even a smigden happy, dare I say it, sitting on the porch with the Sunday paper and my coffee and iPad, reading news and articles while my mother dozed on the sofa inside, giving me that rare break from caregiving for a parent with dementia. We don’t have any outside help until later in the afternoons on Sundays, so I am it on those days, truly the “primary” and only caregiver for most of the day.

There is nothing I love more than these relaxed, meditative mornings and early Sunday afternoons on the porch. As you know, I am a porch person. I could spend most of my waking hours in my favorite rocking chair, whiling away the hours or days, if that were possible, not a thought or care about work, my mind off doctors and medications, diabetes, taking vitals, worrying about my mother and her incessant, bless her heart, chatter when she’s fully awake and repeating herself endlessly. None of that on the porch on this Sunday. I kept popping in to make sure she was ok while she slept, usually with our dear old tabby cat Ginger sleeping soundly by her side. It’s such a sweet sight to behold. And she slept most of the day. I had to constantly remind her to eat her lunch. When you are 90, sleep is a much more common companion than for those of us who are younger.

Most of the time, it’s quiet on the porch, but lately I’ve noticed something missing that I dearly cherish, and that is the beautiful, lilting songs of mockingbirds. They might not be as pretty as painted buntings or skylarks, but as songsters they are unmatched. Today, for the first time in quite awhile, one of those most musical and industriously happy birds visited our garden and sang to me from atop one of the trees overhanging the garden. What a joy to hear his song again. When I first saw him right after breakfast outside the den door, I greeted him warmly and petitioned him to sing. I was not disappointed. What golden notes came forth. I felt my spirits so lifted that I could exult momentaraily that life is good, indeed, despite everything going on that imbues us with melancholy in the news media. The bird’s song banished all the negativity. Gone! Thank you, dear mockingbird.

The bird left a couple of hours ago and it’s too quiet once again in the garden without his presence. But for a while the mockingbird “Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art…” How grandly the poet Shelley expressed it. Exactly. It’s been a long time since I formally studied that poem in college, but I remember it vividly to this day, more than 40 years later.

A beautiful youtube tribute to the mockingbird, and this was very much what I heard to day:

Last updated October 12, 2014